After an abbreviated senior season at Amanda Elzy, Maurice Dunlap II is looking forward to lacing it up one more time in high school.
The 6-foot-2 sharp-shooting guard and Mississippi State signee will do that Friday in the Mississippi/Alabama All-Star Classic. The game is set for 7 p.m. at Jackson State.
“It’s going to be a good experience playing with such a good group of players from my home state. It’s also good exposure for my hometown and my high school,” said Dunlap, who averaged 25 points a game for the 10-3 Panthers this season.
Dunlap helped lead Elzy to two straight Class 4A state championships as a sophomore and a junior.
But the Panthers had their basketball schedule trimmed to just 13 games this season in wake of the Mississippi Board of Education’s recent takeover of the Leflore County School District and were unable to defend their back-to-back state titles.
Dunlap is one of six Mississippi all-stars who have signed Division I scholarships. That group is led by Moss Point guard Devin Booker, who averaged 31 points a contest this year. He is headed to Kentucky.
The others are St. Martin’s Ed Simpson (Middle Tennessee State), Murrah’s Jacob Ivory (Middle Tennessee State), Madison Central’s Xavian Stapleton (Louisiana Tech) and Grenada’s Joniah White (Louisiana Tech).
Dunlap will be playing against one of his future Bulldog teammates in Demetrius Houston out of Carver High School in Alabama.
Dunlap got a phone call from MSU coach Rick Ray Wednesday night to see how things were going with all-star practice and to see if he had talked to Houston.
“We already know each other. It will be fun playing against him, but we won’t be guarding one another,” Dunlap said. “The coaches have me playing point guard this week, and Demetrius is a three.”
