In The Shadow Of The Black Sun

Often, it’s 500 shots. Sometimes, a thousand. And the Betts siblings will not stop until they’ve pushed themselves to their hooping brink. Sienna Betts, the Grandview senior who is a five-star recruit, sees the workouts with her freshman brother, Dylan, as part of her push to cement herself as one of the best girls basketball players in Colorado history. For Dylan, the weekly sessions with Sienna throughout the summer and fall were stepping stones to starting his high school career at Cherry Creek.

A look at 30 Colorado high school boys basketball players to keep an eye on during the 2024-25 CHSAA season.* Siraaj Ali, sr., G, Overland: Quick and crafty with range and the ability to see the court, the 5-foot-11 Ali (16.6 points, 6.4 assists in 2023-24) is the conductor of an Overland attack that looked all sorts of dangerous by the end of last season.

LAFAYETTE — Evan Eschmeyer first spotted Kristina Divjak as she walked off the basketball court at Northwestern University. He was a 6-foot-11 junior center, she was a freshman shooting guard. He thought she was hot. “Oh, please! I was wearing a sweatshirt!” she recalled with a hearty laugh. So began the Eschmeyers’ hoops fairytale. Evan and Kristina starred at Northwestern, fell in love, got married, had three kids, and extended a lineage of basketball royalty with deep roots in America’s heartland. The Eschmeyer family — mom, dad, the twins, Alexandra and Elijah, and youngest daughter Mila — recently gathered in the Peak to Peak Charter School gym to talk about basketball, their excitement over the Pumas’ upcoming season and Nikola Jokic. “We love the ‘Joker,’ ” said 9-year-old Mila. “We sure do, but it would be annoying for people to watch Nuggets games with us,” Kristina said.

Jerry Jeudy was better in space than NASA. But he never posted stats out of this world. Jerry Jeudy ran elite routes, but the destination rarely finished in the end zone. Jerry Jeudy needed consistency, and could not overcome the carousel of chaos with head coaches (four) and starting quarterbacks (seven). As the Broncos’ first-round draft pick in 2020, Jeudy was not bad.

BEIRUT — The Syrian military rushed in reinforcements Sunday to push back insurgents from advancing farther into the northern Hama countryside after they seized Aleppo and surrounding strategic locations in an adjacent province in a surprise offensive. The insurgents led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took over most of Aleppo on Saturday and claimed to have entered the city of Hama.

December may be cold, but there are plenty of hot new releases coming out on Netflix. The mega-popular Squid Game returns for a second season on Dec. 26. Those interested in World War II history can watch the docu-series on Winston Churchill Churchill at War, out Dec. 4. Combine it with Darkest Hour, the 2017 Churchill biopic leaving the site on Dec.