If there's one summer weekend where you can get a true gauge of what basketball potential a team may have for the winter, it's this week's Stellar Co. Catch a Rising Star Basketball Showcase at Cedar Beach in Allentown.

Bethlehem, Freedom and Liberty will be back at it and should feature their top rosters as the tournament opens up Thursday evening. Liberty faces the toughest challenge to open the tournament as they take on Reading at 7 p.m. on Thursday.

Reading is playing in this year's Cedar Beach Summer League, but Liberty hasn't encountered them yet.

However, Hurricanes' head coach Chad Landis knows it's going to be difficult with what he's seen of Reading so far in the tournament.

"They're a very good team," Landis said. "It's going to be a tough task for us to get out of that opening round, but this is what this tournament is all about. It's about playing the best competition in this tournament and we're looking forward to it."

Freedom is on the same side of the bracket as Liberty and open with Exeter at 5 p.m. in the opening stages of the tournament. The Patriots, along with Bethlehem Catholic, will be looking for brighter results this weekend following a difficult stretch in the summer league season so far.

Freedom is 1-7, while their other team, Freedom B was 0-8 heading into last week.

Becahi sat at 1-8 as well heading into last week's action, as they open up Stellar with Governor Mifflin at 7 p.m.

Head coach Mike Frew has been playing most of the summer with an inconsistent lineup, which should become better once this weekend rolls around.

"We've had a lot of guys miss time because of conflicts with their schedules this summer," said Frew. "We'll still be missing some guys this weekend, but we'll have guys like Freddie [Simmons] available. Our goal is to compete and stay alive till Sunday. That's what we want to do."

Liberty was holding a 6-3 record in summer league play heading into this week and with Reading on the docket in their opener, Landis wants to see that competitive nature come to fruition as well, as Reading was undefeated at 8-0, sitting in second place behind Parkland (9-0).

With a new off-season underway, Landis has plans to reexamine everything for the program moving forward, with the help of three key seniors in Jaevan Dobbins, Ludwin Gonzalez and Trenton Bishop.

"We just want to change how we go about things and we're going to try a lot of different things," Landis said about the plans for the future of the team. "This is primarily a young group, so once the summer is over and we head into fall, we'd like to have a better idea of where we'll be at. Stellar is the first real test for our guys, so we'll see how it goes."