Senior Editor and Arizona Preps Founder, Anthony Ray, has worked hard daily to cover and mentor Arizona’s high school and junior college basketball prospects since 1995. Ray’s pursuit to improve the lives of Arizona’s youth has translated for almost 20 years. After a strong basketball season at Pima JC, Ray attempted to walk on at Northern Arizona before giving up his basketball career to raise his daughter. Ray completed a Bachelor of Science Degree (BS) at Arizona State University in 1995, and then completed a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (Management) at Western International University in 2002, and a Master’s in Business Administration (Marketing) at Western International University in 2014.

Ray began his goal of improving the level of basketball in the state of Arizona and providing valuable scholarship opportunities to Arizona’s underprivileged youth. Ray began his scouting service, the Arizona Hoop Review (an NCAA Approved Scouting Service), in 1995. The report was sent out quarterly to many of the nation’s top division-I programs and included an overview of the state’s best in high school and junior college basketball. Since then and currently today, Ray is Arizona’s most respected College Basketball Scout – helping more than (350) high school student-athletes over the years land Division-I scholarships.

With the Arizona Hoop Review scouting report taking off across the country, the report would reach the hands of a West Coast basketball scout, Jerry Norley of West Coast Hoops. Norley contacted Ray and gave him an opportunity to create an Arizona-based recruiting website, Arizonapreps.com, in the summer of 1999.