AKRON, OHIO – LeBron James took the court against some of the country’s top college players in his hometown and – surprise, surprise – he stayed on the court for a while.

He won five consecutive games before his team lost.

The amazing part of watching James is that he never took a single play off while going up against guys like Wes Matthews, Brook Lopez, Ty Lawson, Jeremy Pargo and other top college guys.

Two players stood out from a college crop that also included Chris Douglass-Roberts, Drew Neitzel (Michigan State), Scottie Reynolds (Villanova), Patrick Christopher (Cal), Courtney Lee (Western Kentucky), JaJuan Smith (Tennessee), Hasheem Thabeeet and Jeff Adrien (UConn), Brook and Robin Lopez (Stanford), Alex Maric (Nebraska), Shaun Pruitt (Illinois) and Othello Hunter (Ohio State).

Xavier’s pint-sized point guard Drew Lavender and Rider big man Jason Thompson.

Lavender was terrific and was throwing pinpoint passes to James for easy hoops. The two seemed to have a good rapport – and for good reason. James grew up in Akron – about 90 minutes down the road from Lavender’s hometown of Columbus.

``We’ve know each other’s games,” Lavender said. “We’ve played against each other growing up since we were little.”

Thompson’s play was a shock to college coaches and NBA scouts in attendance. He wasted little time scoring over James and also was solid defensively on the NBA star.

Thompson averaged 20.1 points and 10.1 boards at Rider last year, but the senior-to-be is still a virtual unknown.

``I’ve known LeBron,” Thompson said. “I know a couple of his relatives and we call each other cousins. We had a good little battle. A couple of guys didn’t want to guard him.”