Mid-week recap

CSTV and Bill Hodges have updates on OJ Mayo's high school choice for 2006-07, a 2006 center falling out of the sky and landing in a Division 1 school, and some mid-major verbals.

Clark Francis has a freebie update talking about the players at the Five Star Camp

Pitino on recruiting: In his practice blog Rick Pitino reveals that he is going after 2-3 players when recruiting resumes on September 9. He is also having unofficial visits during the practice sessions.

Baylor: Negative Recruiting?

Gary Parrish writs about Baylor and negative recruiting. A controversial story as he exposes some negative recruiting tactics by Baylor, such as a flyer promo crossing-out (in ink, not temper) Bob Knight and Billy Gillespie. But this comes from multiple sources, at least three separate coaching staffs said so. A couple of other examples highlighted in the story: mis-representing the graduation rates of another Big-12 university, and creating a highlight package of all the problems at Memphis for a recruit considering Memphis.

And this of course comes from Bryce Drew and his staff, Bryce Drew claiming to be a very religious man at a very religious university. Apparently the rules of what is ethical are flexible when it comes to sports? Another case of B.i.g.o.t.r.y from those claiming to be standing on a high moral ground? You be the judge :-)

When confronted by CBS interviews Drew started spinning like a good ole politician and apologized. Essentially apologized for getting caught. While nowhere near as severe as the Dave Bliss situation, Bryce Drew is no saint!

CSTV Top 100 recruits of 2007

CSTV Top 100, 2007. Not ranked however, just sorted alphabetically.

Two interesting websites!

HoopsUSA offers a variety of news and a nice collection of links relating to the world of recruiting and prep hoops. Included are stories on Kevin Love, OJ Mayo and Billy Walker, and the 2006 Summer Camp AAU circuit. Make sure you bookmark their site. Their list of links at the bottom of the page is one of the most comprehensive I have seen!

Another website of interest is HSBN.TV which features webcasts of high school basketball games and special events, including exclusive coverage of Nike's IS8.

Daily Recruits - Tuesday

Gary Parrish thoughts include two recruiting stories: Derrick Rose [allegedly] narrows his list down to five (but Illinois not included!). The five being DePaul, Memphis, UCLA, Indiana and Kansas (as if Bill Self needs another point guard!). Also mentioned is the recruiting of Anthony Randolph (not to be confused with the former Duke flake Shavlik Randolph)

CSTV reports on Dusquene losing one and gaining one, a new JuCo at LaTech, a former MissState signee going mid-major, and FAU getting two.

Clark Francis has a new update on the freebie section of Hoop Scoop Online, with 13 reasons why you should consider subscribing. He also reports the latest on O.J. Mayo (as of August 21st), and progress made by new coaches at Seton Hall (Gonzo) and Nebraska (Doc Sandler). Also included in the freebie sections are top 10 player rankings of various classes, and the top 15 class rankings based on HoopScoop's exclusive point system.

News, rankings, profiles, videos and a lot more at Rivals, Scout (formerly Insiders), HoopMasters, Prepstars.com, and PrepSpotlight

Blog news: New look

Today I am trying a new blog look, hopefully to make the blog easier to read. If you have any suggestions on recommendations, please post them as a comment or send an email. Thanks!

Monday Night Recruits

Rivals unveils their new Top 150 and as it has become fashionable now, OJ Mayo is no longer #1. Who is? You have to read to find out :-)

Bill Hodges and CSTV report that OJ Mayo could be enrolling in a school in W.Va (high-school level, not college commitment). Also Skip Prosser gets a 2007 forward, and Rutgers gets a 2007 guard with Philly connections. Others getting new verbals: DePaul, NCState, VCU, NW (Croatian pipeline continues), and UNLV.

Speaking of UNLV, CSTV Daily News reports that they are getting a transfer from the U of Tom Penders (Houston) in L. Roberson.

Weekend rewind

CSTV and Bill Hodges report a couple of high profile 2007 verbals to Rick Pitino and his protege Billy Donovan. Others getting 2007 verbals: George MASON, Pitt, BC, USC. Back to the 2006-07 season, Cincy's big polish JC center seems to be ready to go, and TCU got a JC player. For all the details visit their website.

SfBaBasketball.blogspot.com has spotted a recruiting story from Delaware on 2009 class recruit Tajh Tate

InsideHoops has links to stories on the latest recruits for TCU, Pitt, Bamba Fall's eligibility, and a MN transfer.

Catching up with the recruiting trail

2006-07 eligible Commitments

Seketoure Henry of Patterson prep factory (and former Rob Evans commit at ASU) will play for Doc Sandler at Nebraska in 2006-07. Doc Sandler is not wasting any time folks! He'll probably land an even better job than Nebraska in 2-3 years, jumping around Bill Self style.

Fordham gets David Boykin

The Salukis get a 7-footer; the MVC is literally getting BIG!

Steve Alford added a 6-11 center but two of his recruits failed to qualify

Virgina Tech had two failures to qualify as well

2007-08 eligible Commitments

BC, Seton Hall, So.Illinois, Iowa State, USC, Providence and Miami-Ohio get new verbals.

Anjuan Wildnreness of Charlotte will attend prep school instead

Transfers

Y. Idrissi (formerly of Georgia) will transfer to Iona (or Baylor?)

Kendrick Johnson (of Georgia) will go to a JC

K. Ford (of New Mexico State) will transfer to a JC

D. Hayles of Alabama is transfering to South Alabama for family reasons

Dom. Tilford (ex-Cincy) goes to JC

Virginia guard transfers to Liberty. Ouch!

Return of the Jedi

Jeremy Hunt is back at Memphis for his senior season

Sources for the stories:
*Insidehoops
*Andrew Skwara of Rivals.com
*Bill Hodges and CSTV Recruiting

Stare like a zombie, into the TV

Recruiting-wise, here's what's available on TV:

90-minute highlight show of the 2006 Reebok Big Time AAU tourney on CSTV (multiple repeats)

90-minute highlight show of the 2006 Reebok ABCD Camp tourney on CSTV (multiple repeats)

30-minute summer edition of Seth Davis Generation Next at the ABCD Camp on CSTV (multiple repeats)

Also Fox College Sports is showing reruns of the various state championship games. Check local listings.

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Monday night recruits

CSTV Recruting reports a variety of mid-major commitments for 2007.

Clark Francis has updated the freebies section at Hoopscooponline. Clark please feel free to mix in a few paragraph breaks. Please!!!

InsideHoops reports a story in the Lawrence-Journal World that James Anderson has narrowed down his list to four: Kansas, Arkansas, the Champions (Florida), and Okl-State.

Daily Recruits - Friday

CSTV reports new commitments for Clemson, UMass and College of Charleston (in case you forgot their new coach is the one and only Bobby Cremins). Meanwhile Mississippi State gets a transfer, and Doc Sandler should consider a career in sales or politics as he is bringing back in more and more of the Nebraska transfers. He even flew to Australia for that.

Don't forget to checkout the ABCD camp and Big Time highlights on CSTV's Generation Next. Check local listings...

Possible changes to the recruiting process? Andy Katz reports in his semi-free blog. You have to be an ESPN Insider to get the whole story, otherwise you just get the teaser :)

Daily Recruits - Friday

Gary Parrish of CBS reports that Alabama's recruit Verice Cloyd has been cleared academically by the NCAA Big Brother.

CSTV's Bill Hodges reports some new 2007 commitments for Virginia, Wisconsin, Wisc-Milw. Meanwhile back to 2006, a late commitment of size will make the day for Steve Alford and Iowa. On the transfer front, Auburn is losing one, and TJ Banister finds a new home.

Don't forget to checkout CSTV's TV coverage of the Reebok Big Time and ABCD camps with 90-minute highlight shows and a 30-minute Seth Davis Generation Next show.

Top 100 Juco players for 2006

Top 100 JuCo players from JucoJunction.com

As you can see most of them have already signed with colleges and will play in the 2006-2007 season. But some of them are available, such as former Alabama guard Albert Webber.

Daily Recruits - Wednesday (late edition)

Greg Parrish of CBS Sportsline has a great story on faux prep schools (aka diploma mills) and how it has affected junior colleges (JCs), with obvious implications to recruiting.

New commitments are reported by CSTV/Bill Hodges: for Wisconsin, Butler, SMU (Matt Doherty was a bad bad bad choice as a head coach), and a transfer for Delaware.

AAU Reebok Big Time on CSTV

CSTV showcased today the 2006 Reebok Big Time tourney special recap show. It is 90 minutes long (commercials included). They show highlights from multiple games. It is similar in style to their previous coverage of the ABCD camp in 2006 and also similar to their 2005 coverage.

As with most things on CSTV, it will repeat a few more times during the next few days/weeks, and it may also be available on their website cstv.com. They are also repeating the 2006 ABCD Camp special 90-minute show and the 30-minute Seth Davis Generation Next filmed during the ABCD camp.

In the Big Time tourney, AAU teams compete against each other (as opposed to dividing players in random teams in all-star-game fashion). Some of the teams profiled were the D1 Greyhounds - OJ Mayo, Billy Walker -, and the SoCal All-Stars (or something like that) with Kevin Love, Taylor King and Brandon Jenkins.

West Coast Bias segment: Going big

There is a new trend developing on the west coast and more specifically in the Pac 10. It's a big trend: teams are going big. Big but not necessarily not mobile.

Look at some of the height coming in the Pac 10 this year and next year, in addition to the ones already in school:

* Spencer Hawes
* the Lopez twins
* Euro imports: Roeland Schaftenaaar, Marco Spica (had he qualified)
* (Deon Thompson had he not be "stolen" by Roy Williams)

And in 2007:
* Kevin Love
* Alex Jacobson
* Eric Boetang (transfer; former McDonalds AA)
* Harper Kemp
* Emeka Iweka (not as tall but space-eater)

The signing of the Lopez twins at Stanford and Spencer Hawes at Washington essentially re-started the arms race for talented big men, which continued with the 2007 commitments. UCLA upped the ante in 2007 by getting Kevin Love, which should put more pressure on the other Pac10 teams to get more bigs...

Granted some of the players are so talented they may be one and done, but usually coaches hope for at least two (and dream of four). Typically players need more than one year to prepare for the NBA, with a few lottery exceptions...

As you can see from the list above, Washington, Stanford and UCLA have a premium big man, with Cal, Arizona, ASU and OSU getting talented four-year big men to counter. The 2007 recruiting is far from over, so expect more size in the Pac 10!

The Silver Fox gets Bayless back

CSTV Recruiting reports that the Silver Fox got a recommitment from Arizona guard Jerryd Bayless. Bayless apparently wanted to test the water, but it looks like he is back now at U of A. Looks like the beginning of another Salim-Stoudamire-like player/coach relationship at U of A ;-) Other schools Bayless was looking at with varying degrees of interest: Texas, Illinois, Carolina, Kansas.

But kidding aside, Lute Olson can reload as fast as anybody else.

Daily Recruits - Wednesday

In today's edition CSTV's Bill Hodges reports on a new 2007 verbal by the Johnies (from the Christ the King in NY, which bodes well for the St Johns coach as he tries to defend his home turf). Others getting new 2007 verbals: Notre Dame, Montana, UNC-Wilmington, and Southern Alabama.

Not a lot of other recruiting news or stories, but if you are really bored, please feel free to visit my college basketball blog: http://ncaahoopstoday.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the links!

My thanks for linking to this blog go to the Bruins Online message board (Scout.com) and the Chicago-Illini Sports blogspot:

http://mb26.scout.com/fbroreadersfrm1
http://chicago-illini-sports.blogspot.com/

Update: Fixed url for Bruins Online forum.

Daily Recruits - Tuesday

CSTV's Bill Hodges reports a three-year backup guard leaving Dave Leito's program, LMU getting a 2007 recruit, and of course on the big news of Jamarcus Ellis and Jamelle McMillan

InsideHoops points to a Seattle Times story covering the commitment of Jamelle McMillan, Nate Mc Millan's son, to ASU and even keeled Herb Sendek. Also linked is a story on Derrick Rose, allegedly cutting down his list to Memphis and Illinois.

Don't forget to checkout the Hoopmasters site. Van Coleman and company has many features and news. The content is mostly for subscribers but the forums are free :-)

Monday Night Recruits

Would you like some drama with your Mayo? OJ Mayo offered that when he abruptly cancelled a news conference expected to announce his commitment, presumably to the USC Trojans.

CSTV and Bill Hodges have the latest news: Despite the two losses of Kruger&Krueger even-keeled Herbie Sendek is having great success recruiting the west coast. His latest recruit is the highly touted son of former Supersonic-great Nate McMillan. Also in the update, a JC guard with former Big12 tighs signs with Kelvin Sampson (his specialty) at IU.

InsideHoops posted a link to a WSJ story on Boston College recruiting. No, no the Wall Street Journal, the Winston-Salem-Journal :-) You may find that the story is span/skewed in a pro-ACC fashion, but what would you expect from a Winston-Salem paper?

Weekend Rewind

CSTV's Bill Hodges reports on the latest, including new signees for Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, and a report/rumor that OJ Mayo is close to an announcement between USC, Huggins State and Florida (it pays to be a national champion!). Speaking of Huggins State, they just added a 2006 player in Ray Brewer, who was ...brewing at super-prep school Patterson.

Meanwhile FoxSports Ben Maller reports/scoops that OJ Mayo will announce for the USC Trojans on Sunday.

Don't miss the weekly HoopScoop Radio internet show with your host Clark Francis. And if you miss it when it airs live, you can still listen to it.

Rivals has a few updates, including a new commit for the Big East!

New from FoxSports and Scout.com

Breaking news from Jeff Goodman: The Calhoun Empire Strikes Back! Calhoun gets two sophomore commits. Both players will be at Winchendon this season. Who are they? Find out in the Jeff Goodman story...

The latest buzz from Dave Telep highlights some summer camp standouts (including Tracy Smith of MtZion), and Seth Greenberg's recruits among others. Also contributing in the story Mike Sullivan talks about BC getting a player from the East Coast (I thought they only recruited California?), and Tyrone Nash making a decision. Also contributing Greg Hicks with west coach news (Cal, and San Diego).

About a month old, but very interesting: Goodman chronicles the story on Kentucky, Tubby Smith and Tyrone Nash. This is another disappointment for Big Blue fans as it looks like a mid-major-type recruit may turn down KY in favor of prep school. Ouch! Also in this story Daniel Hackett trying to qualify for the 06-07 at USC after the loss of Ryan Francis and the academic ineligibility of Gabe Pruitt, Jalloh and James Madison, the NCAA chasing fake prep schools, Duke offering a W.Va recruit...

Daily Recruits - Friday

CSTV reports some new news, mostly of the transfer variety. Arizona State and BYU lose players, while Michigan gains a transfer who recently played in Joisey. Details from Bill Hodge

Clark Francis has an update as of Monday on the freebie section of HoopScoopOnline. Clark, please feel free to mix in a few paragraph breaks, please :-]

Daily Recruits - Thursday

Mike DeCourcy has another recruiting dish, debating the #1 recruit of 2007 (OJ Mayo? Eric Gordon? Michael Beasly? Kevin Love?). He also highlights rising and falling prospects, Bob Huggins smiling, and Tubby Smith frustrating Kentucky fans by his lackluster recruiting style.

Arizona State adds a 2007 forward from Artesia. On a totally unrelated story the basketball coach of Artesia is now Herb Sendek's assistant :-)

CSTV Recruiting also reports of commitments by Marquette, Colorado and BYU

Pure speculation: Aleks Maric to Baylor? His Australian teammate Aaron Bruce plays at Baylor. Unless Maric does not want to sit out for a year and instead decides to pursue a pro career in Europe.

Daily Recruits

Rivals unveils their new Top150 for 2007 and they (fashionably I might add) have a new #1. OJ Mayo appears to no longer be the trendy #1 among the recruiting experts. Rivals new #1 is former Charlotte-verbal, and now Huggie's recruit, Michael Beasley. Other movers include Eric Gordon, Kyle Singler (I have this bad feeling he is going to commit to Puke), DeAndre Jordan. Five new comers enter their Top150, the last one being a Flintstone going to desert. For all the details, visit rivals.com and/or their YahooSports content.

InsideHoops has multiple reports of Eric Gordon visiting the campus of Indiana. His father said it was not a "visit". Perhaps he went there for the coffee?

Tyrone Nash breaks Tubby's heart as he decides to attend prep school instead of joining Big Blue this season. Kentucky badly needs talent!

Mike Cronin is hard at work as he gets a 6-3 SG in Larry Davis of TX.

New transfer: Alecs Maric formerly of Collier/Nebraska. (aka free agent)

CSTV Recruiting among others report that Kelvin Sampson got his first commitment as the Indiana head coach. And he didn't have to flip his cellphone open ;-) Brandon McGee is a forward from the state of Illinois. Other teams picking up recent commitments: Xavier, Alabama, Cincy, BC, VaTech, N.Iowa, Washington State. Read all about it at CSTV Recruiting

One recent transfer may have to rethink his situation, but may have ran out of options anyway. Former Colorado State forward Dale Vanwright went to Colorado but then went to UTEP. So far so good, but just today Doc Sandler bolted for Nebraska. So what will Dale do?

Big East Recruiting (2007-08)

The BigEastBasketballBlog takes a look at the 2007-08 rosters of all 16 Big East teams. This is a valueable resource for those following the recruiting process by looking at the number of scholarships and team needs (and projecting who will bolt for the NBA).

New material at HoopScoopOnline

Fans of free stuff will be delighted to find out that Clark Francis (CF) of HoopScoopOnline and the weekly Hoop Scoop Radio/Internet show has increased the number of free stuff posted on his website.

He provides the Top 10 classes of 2007 thru 2011, as well as the Top 10 players at each of the big shoe company camps of this summer (Nike All-Am, Rbk ABCD, Adidas Superstar). One thing that Clark Francis deserves extra credit for is separating the Five-Year-Players from the Four-Year-Players in his high-school rankings. Five-Year-Players can usually be found in prep schools that specialize in post-graduate players.

And yes, Clark Francis joins other experts in ranking Kevin Love ahead of OJ Mayo. (Didn't they pick some tall guy ahead of Michael Jordan in the NBA Draft a few years ago?)

On top of that, Clark Francis also offers the Top 15 class ranking of 2007 for free. He uses his own formula to calculate the class rankings by assigning weights to each player's individual ranking.

Syracuse leads the way with five new recruits (the miracle run in the Big East tourney and Boeheim's dramatic support of G-Mac surely helped!). Gonzaga is at #15 (Thanks Ammo!). Transfers are not counted in the rankings, but JC players are.

The biggest surprise may be Purdue at #3. Matt Painter has been hard at work. But can he hold on to these recruits after Purdue has another miserable season?

On top of that, CF also offers one day per week's worth of content for free.

PS> There is a small typo under Duke where "Taylor King" is printed as "Taylor Smith".

Latest recruiting news from CSTV

CSTV's latest recruiting updates include the Cal Bears beating Herb Sendek for a 2007 forward, a former Colorado State player find a new home in Texas, media-savvy Seth Greenberg gets two 2008 verbals, GW gets one of Kevin Love's teammates (coast2coast), and Fresno State gets a former Alabama forward.

Latest news from CSTV/FansOnly

In today's edition, Gonzaga picks up a 2008 verbal from a forward in Oregon (Thanks Ammo, Sincerely Mark Few), Marquette beats Alabama, an Oak Hill player picks FSU, while Miami gets Durham, and Gonzo gets a big man. Read it all about it at http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/

DeCourcy's Recruiting Dish

TSN's Mike DeCourcy has a new *Dish column on the summer recruiting scene in Vegas.. His story talks about Kevin Love and fast food, Chris Bosh's younger twin, the next Deron Williams (sort of), the evil empire at Duke, and Roy's recruiting habbits (only one scholarship to give, but the NBA draft could create as many as four additional roster openings - especially if they win it all).

Marquette gets 2008 recruit

Tom Crean has a secret weapon in recruiting. In fact his secret weapon is so good Tom Crean may not even have to lift a finger. The secret weapon is the success of NBA superstar D-Wade!

Marquette picked up a verbal from 2008 wing Nick Williams. More details on this story at the Marquette Blogger blog and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Latest news from CSTV/Fansonly

The latest recruiting news from CSTV/FansOnly and Bill Hodges are always here:http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/

Some of the recent developments:
* Billy Gillespie and Texas A&M continue to pile up the recruits for 2007. Watch out Rick Barnes!
* The Brady Bunch adds a 2007 recruit
* Post-Westphal Pepperdine gets a Top100 player



Transfers
* Jalloh - who had philosophical differences with Phil Martelli at times - is now transfering to a presidential university.
* Millard (ex-Louisville) heads to Creighton
* Brian Johnson (ex-Louisville) transfers out. Possible destinations FSU and GW.

Mid-major recruiting at MSNBC

MSNBC has an interesting AP story on mid-major recruiting. It talks about George Mason, the Missouri Valley conference, and of course Gonzaga. Infact Mike DeCourcy of TSN has a story on post-Ammo Gonzaga being a cool spot.

Transfer List for 2006-07 and beyond

Mr Goodman of FoxSports has a big table tracking down all the transfers eligible for the 2006-07 season and beyond. http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/5491136

CHN new recruiting features!

The good people at CHN (collegehoopsnet.com) have updated their recruiting pages with more news from the summer camps, as well as recruiting analysis for the Big East and the SEC. CHN Recruiting

Chris Paul touts next big recruit

During an interview with NBATV during the NBA Summer League broadcasts on NBATV, Chris Paul was touting an up-and-coming recruit he saw at a recent basketball camp. Except this recruit is just ten years old (!). But if Justin Jennifer becomes a future NBA superstar then Chris Paul will be considered a scouting genius!

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