Decommits and Recommits

The theme of the last few days has been decommits and recommits. All the details in CSTV Bill Hodges column

Two classes later 7-footer Clarence Holloway verbals to Rick Pitino for 2007. Will it stick this time? This is the 2nd 7-footer Pitino has signed for 2007.

How about the decommits? LSU, California, Clemson and Alabama.

New verbals for: LSU, SMU.

Transfers out: Cincy

All the details in CSTV Bill Hodges column

Big News!

Many sources including ESPN report that Billy Walker, a highly touted super-athlete of the 2007 class has been admitted to Huggins State (Kansas State), but had not enrolled. He won't be eligible to play in the Fall semester, but it's not crystal clear whether he would be eligible to play in the Spring semester (if he could, it would be HUGE for Huggins). Billy Walker is very developed physically and an extraordinary athlete, and he alone could send Huggins State to the NCAA.

Meanwhile Kyle Singler, the touted Oregonian recruit will not wait for Mike Montgomerry to take over the Oregon Ducks in the spring of 2007. Instead he is about to announce his commitment between Puke, Arizona and Kansas, with UCLA, NC and Washington. Sadly Puke is the likely recipient of his verbal. A duo of Kyle Singler and Taylor King on the wing... Interesting. Apparently Coach K is not satisfied with having Taylor Queen throwing up 3s from the perimeter and wants another forward ;-)

More updates from CSTV and Bill Hodges: Visit their site for the details

Huggins gets a wing that once considered Wake and Arizona

New promising verbals for the new coaches at Oklahoma State, NC State and Iowa State

Others getting verbals: Vandy, UNLV (former Tom Penders commit), more Notre Dame, Hofstra, and various mid-majors and low-majors

A guard transfers out of Georgetown

Latest updates

The latest from CSTV/Bill Hodges:

Two decommits in the South, including a Top 100 player. Ouch for Alabama and Clemson

One top 100 verbal for Rick Stansbury beating some of the regional powers for a KY prospect

Notre Dame gets a Nash, but sadly for them, not Steve ;-)

Temple and Eastern Illinois get centers

Iona and St. Peters split a couple of teammates

find out more in Bill Hodges's daily column at CSTV

A very early verbal is as solid as ...water!

More and more coaches are finding out (the hard way) that an early verbal is a almost a guarantee that you are not going to get the player. Just ask Bobby Lutz (Michael Beasley), Ben Howland (Taylor Queen), Bruce Weber (Eric Gordon)...

Last week USC got a verbal from 6'6" rising freshman (2010 class) Dwayne Polee. And a few weeks/months ago DePaul and UConn got some very early verbals. As Tom Konchalski stated before, at that age they are not even sure what they are going to have for lunch, let alone where they want to go to college...

CSTV/FansOnly currently list seven (7) verbals from the Class of 2009 (2009-2010) season. How many of those will stick? :-)

At the moment they only list one 2010 verbal, USC's Dwayne Polee Jr.

If you are reading this story in the future, the numbers and names above will change for sure :-)

Latest updates

The latest updates from Bill Hodges and CSTV have a few more commitments but not the big names we got last week. The most high profile verbal is former DePaul commit Manuel Cass. Find out where he is heading in 2007-2008 on the Bill Hodges/CSTV site... Other teams getting verbals: Georgia, SDSU (Fisher is catching his 2nd wind it seems), Knight Tech, GW, AF, Cincy, etc...

Thanks to MSNBC "Beyond the Arc"

Thanks to MSNBC's Beyond the Arc blog for the link. Beyond the Arc is a college basketball blog at MSNBC by their college basketball editor Mike Miller, covering stories from all over the country, with links to various stories on local/regional websites/newspapers.

ESPN OTL First report: J-Mychal Reese feature

Today, Thursday October 19, at 2:30pm EST on ESPN, Outside the Lines First Report. Details and the story here.


QUOTE from the ESPN OTL-FR daily email:

Centerpiece - Diaper Dandies
According to the scouting service Hoop Scoop, J-Mychal Reese is the top rated basketball player in his age group. Reese is a superb ball handler, drives strong to the basket, and has a feathery touch from the outside. So it's no surprise that sneaker companies have been showering him with gifts, and Reese has been contacted by several colleges, including Arizona. What might be surprising is that J-Mychal Reese had just finished the sixth grade. Outside the Lines' Tom Farrey reports on the ranking and recruiting of elementary school players, followed by a discussion on the merits and social implications of such judgments

For more on this story, click http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/ivp/splash?id=2520487

End of QUOTE


I am still waiting for someone to post a Top 25 embryos ranking ;-)

Mid-week update

FireTubby.com has a story on AJ Stewart verballing at Kentucky. As you may recall, AJ Stewart is/was part of the Arlington Day County team that included Huggins' 7-footer Jason Bennett, Josue Soto and George Mason's Sammy Hernandez.

InsideHoops covers recruiting AJ Stewart at Kentucky, the quest for Patrick Patterson's verbal (a very hot recruit), LSU getting a 7'2/300+ center, and the triangle of Eric Gordon, IU and Bruce Webber.

CSTV and Bill Hodges report on the latest verbals including Georgetown (two of them, including a touted 2008), Ole Miss, Pitt (a JuCo!), Florida (a decommit), a 7-footer at Northern Illinois, Baylor, BC, Oklahoma State (another discipline situation), Kentucky, and LSU getting a big 7'2" 300+ center. Visit CSTV for the details.

Kelvin Sampson gets his first major victory at Midnight Madness, with Eric Gordon back in-state. More...

Contact via email

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Text Messaging Madness in Recruiting

Yesterday's Taking Issue with Brian Curtis on CSTV featured the topic of text messaging and recruiting. A handful of football coaches, Bill Self and three football players chimed in on the topic.

As with other things with college coaches, they will use it and abuse it until it hurts (or until the NCAA punishes them). Some of them are bombarding recruits with messages throughout the day to show their interest and "outwork" the fingers of the other assistant coaches hammering away as well.

This madness has a financial side effect on recruits: the phone bill sky-rockets, unless they have an unlimited text message plan. Brian Curtis went as far as to compare text messaging plans among different providers (T-Mobile $15/mo unlimited, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, etc). That was so funny though - Brian Curtis was playing "Consumer Reports" or TechTV or perhaps EnGadget.com or Gizmodo.com ;-)

Top 50 JuCos for 2006-07 and 2007-08

This year's edition of the Sporting News College Basketball Yearbook preview magazine includes the Top 50 incoming JuCos and also the Top 50 upcoming Jucos for the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 seasons respectively. The report was produced by BallStars.net. Details on their recruiting coverage and a review of their preseason magazine can be found here

Eric Gordon to Indiana!

CSTV and Bill Hodges report that the Chicago Tribune reported that Eric Gordon will sign with Indiana. Since verbal commitments are non-binding, Eric Gordon can change his mind as many times as he wants until he signs on the dotted line. Early signing period is sometime in November I think. Until then, who knows...

But this make sense. A new coach at Indiana, and the pressure from the in-state crowd (Eric Gordon played high school basketball in Indiana) may have tilted the scales. If it wasn't for Mike Davis, Eric Gordon would have probably signed at Indiana anyways?

[Another possibility is that after 10,000 phone calls from Kelvin Sampson, Eric Gordon wanted to make them stop and the only way to do that was to go to IU (just kidding!!!)].

The Yugoslavian 10 (aka the Pac-10)

Apparently the Pac-10 coaches have discovered a new source of talent, or at least it became trendy among them. Players from the former Yugoslavia are now available in many rosters:

Ivan Radenovic (Arizona)

Marco Spica (UCLA) - but did not qualify

Nikola Dragovic (UCLA) - not 100% on this one

Sasa Cuic (Oregon State)

nikola knezevic (Cal)

Sead Odzic (USC)

Vojin Silvar (Oregon State)

Ilia Milutonovic (2007) (Oregon State)

Another big recruit verbals!

Win some, lose some for NC State. Andrew Brackman decided to sit out this basketball season so he can focus on baseball. But the new NC State coach got some great news when he beat Bruce Pearl and Tenneessee for the services of a highly touted recruit. CSTV and Bill Hodges reveals the name! Other teams with verbals: George Mason, Washington State. Meanwhile one of USC's verbals has changed his mind and may help re-establish the SoCal-to-BostonCollege pipeline (new assistants you see).

Chris Wright verbals

CSTV/Bill Hodges report that once-NC-State-bound DC touted guard Chris Wright has decided to stay in-state and commit to John Thompson III.

Breaking News: Anthony Randolph commits!

According to CSTV and Bill Hodges the Final Four Tigers (LSU) has received a verbal from this highly touted forward, Anthony Randolph. (Not to be confused with Puke's flake Shavlik Randolph).

Good news for the Big East as well as Pitt picks up DeJuan Blair and the Johnnies pick up Chris Mullin (ooops, center Ayodele Coker)

Weekend update

Jeff Goodman at FoxSports.com has a new story on the recruiting battles over Anthony Randolph (LSU, Texas), JJ Hickson (Tennessee, NC State), Eric Gordon (Illinois, Indiana)

Hal Pastner takes advantage of Adidas and Nike withdrawing from the early July all-star shoe circuit, and starts his own tourney. Reported by Andy Katz in his ESPN Insider blog.

Verbals come the way of Pitt, Minnessota, Nevada, Charlotte, UMass, Nebraska, Tulane, Wichita State, Oregon, SDSU, TCU and Creighton among many others according to CSTV/Bill Hodges. Also reported are problems in the Oklahoma State ...garden (!)

As always, InsideHoops has the latest from a local newspaper perspective. Among other things covered are a new group of academically ineligible players (7'3" Thabeet @ UConn, Washington @ Arkansas (again)). Commitment stories: Keegan Bell to Vandy, Whitehurst to Charlotte. Visits and updates on prospects: Andrew Ogilvy, Jonathan Edwards. University of Georgia president addresses graduation rates, recruiting and competitiveness. An SF Chronicle story on the new NBA Draft rule, highlighting Greg Oden and Spencer Hawes. Stories on Patrick Hazel and his verbal to Marquette. Doc Sandler's latest signees.

Gary Parrish blogs again, this time on Sonny Vaccaro refusing to back down. Afraid perhaps of the Godfather, the NCAA continues to leave him in the dark when it comes to arranging meetings with all parties involved.

Mid-week update

Gary Parrish of CBS sportsline has new blog thoughts on Sonny Vaccaro's latest outburst against everyone else meeting without him present. Also covered are Marquette (Patrick Hazel commitment), and LaSalle beating the odds and getting both Williams twins.

Three college basketball preseason preview magazines have been reviewed so far at the NcaaHoopsToday blog. The latest one being the Street and Smith which beats Lindy's and Athlon in recruiting coverage. It includes top 5 teams by metro areas, and expanded list of top recruits for 2007 and beyond.

A semi-related topic is Hazing, recently covered by CSTV's Taking Issue with Brian Curtis.

Also semi-related, the premier of NBC's Friday Night Lights had some recruiting references, including a recruiter from Notre Dame pressing on the parent to agree on a visit.

Meanwhile CSTV and Bill Hodges have a few more updates: Commitments for Georgia, Oregon, SDSU, Creighton and Nebraska. Visit their site to find out who... Noteworthy: Jack Sikma's son recently committed to Portland.