News: Adidas out of summer camp business

A story by Andy Katz at ESPN.com. This is a free story! This came after a meeting of the minds in Indianapolis among all parties involved. Nike may follow suit, leaving Sonny Vaccaro the last one to make a decision. Nothing is set in stone yet, but all sorts of ideas are coming up, such as a national basketball academy. A very interesting story on this topic, and more will for sure come up in the next few days as there is a wind of change, quite possibly triggered by the performance of Team USA in the last few years, which pinpointed at some problems rooted at the grass roots level...

Weekend update

CSTV and Bill Hodges continue their regular recruiting updates with verbals of two seven footers (FSU,KY), and two California recruits committing (LSU, Washington). Other teams involved in recruiting activity: Virginia, St Joe's (Martelli), Albany, LaSalle, Huggins, Nebraska, Drake, Winthrop, USC, Wyoming, Oregon State (not an ex-Yugoslavian this time) and Colorado among many others. To find out who verballed where, please visit their website :-)

Clark Francis and his one single huge page format has some updates in the freebie Visitor section. He talks about his work-in-progress for the class of 2007 rankings, and the controversy he stirred when talking about UCLA recruiting SoCal phenom PG Brandon Jennings (allegedly one and done). There seems to be more to this story since Kevin Love might also be a one and done player given his improvement year over year. As I have mentioned many times in the past, I am not convinced that Ben Howland's is able to recruit consistently at the top-level UCLA alums aspire to be. And this is after a dream run to the NCAA Final. Kevin Love was the exception, not the rule given how many other top talented SoCals have slipped away despite UCLA needing them badly (eg Deon Thompson and Alex Stevenson to UNC). This may sound harsh but look at the facts: 1) UCLA roster 2) UCLA needs 3) number of talented SoCals that UCLA needed right away 4) look at who committed where. Last but not least Clark has posted his Top 500 sophoromores (class of 2009). The list of Top 10 Embryos is still in progress ;-)

InsideHoops covers recruiting news from a local perspective, including Jacob Pullen at Kansas State over Dayton et al, Blake Hoffarber at Minnessoooottta, Omari Johnson at Oregon State, Justin Holiday at UW, and an update on Charles Bronson (not the movie star)

Andy Katz reports on the story that Adidas is pulling out of the summer sneaker camp business. The question remains as to what Nike and Reebok are going to do.

Luke Winn of CNNSI looks into the topic of Activism and recruiting at Illinois, as part of the ongoing mascot debate...

Monday Night Recruits

Mater Dei Dookie Taylor King was featured yesterday on ABC Sports special one-hour show "Who got game" hosted by James Worthy and Paul Sunderland (or Sutherland?). No, he did not change his mind, he is still going to Duke. He acknowledged that he is no longer the #1 of his class (duh!), but he continues to improve. Also featured on that show was the UCLA team, Adam Morrisson's summer in Charlotte, and a 2-minute preview of the NCAA season by James Worthy, highlighting Florida, NC, Ohio State, UConn (!) and others. The cohost mentioned the names of Kansas and Pitt and Arizona.

CSTV and Bill Hodges have the latest updates on new verbals at Washington, Oregon State, Minnessoooota, Colorada, DePaul (this time beating Pitino and Pearl) - watch out for DePaul, it's starting to become the powerhouse that tempted Richard Digger Phelps to come out of retirement a few years ago. But the biggest news is the committment of the one and only Korie Lucious of 2008. Did the Wisconsin star stay in-state or in-conference or went elsewhere? Visit the CSTV page to find out :-)

Coverage of some of the latest recuriting commitment from a local newspaper perspective are provided at InsideHoops. Included are Washington, DePaul, Wake, VaTech, and LSU's next "Big Baby".

Couch Coach and Master Recruiter

You know who you are. You think you know it all. You think you know better than the coaches. You think you can design a better play. Well now you can do it from the comfort of your own couch with these:

Weekend update

Another day at the office for CSTV and Bill Hodges with updates on DePaul (again), Kansas State, LSU (Final Four but still going after JuCos), VCU (no Capel), Dayton and more. And the Idrissi situation has reached a conclusion: he is transfering to Iona.

Dave Telep updates his recruiting buzz at FoxSports with a story on Jai Lucas. If the name sounds familiar, it's because he is the brother of the Oklahoma State PG and son of the former NBA great. At 5-9 he is considered a Top 50 prospect. He has four teams he is mostly considering. Read all about it at Foxsports.com. Mike Sullivan covers the rumor of a Rice HS sophomore commiting to Rick Pitino and stories on a couple of east coast recruits. Greg Hicks has three updates from the West Coast.

TV wise, there is a wisconsin HS basketball all star game scheduled to broadcast on Fox College Sports tomorrow. I have no clue if it is a rerun or a new broadcast. I am assuming there will be some Division 1 signees or prospects, but I don't have any further details.

Midweek update

Bill Hodges reports new commitments for LSU, Vandy, BC, DePaul (over other midwestern powerhouses), East Carolina, St Bonaventure, Larry Bird's college, Colorado, E.Washington and more.

Clark Francis updates the freebie section of HoopScooponline with a preview of his Top 500 Sophomores list (Class of 2009). I kid you not. Clark thinks very highly of the class of 2009. Read more about it at HoopScoopOnline.com. Maybe the list of the Top 100 Embryos will be posted next week ;-)

Super Tuesday

Bill Hodges and CSTV report on a trio of new signings by the General, Robert Montgomery Knight, FSU, GW, Fairfield, LaTech, Rice and Pacific

Jeff Goldman of FoxSports reports that Bridgton Acamedy has been taken off the list of alleged "diploma mills" under investigation. The complete list can be found in Jeff's story. It includes some high profile prep schools, such as MtZion, NDPrep, StTHomasMore, Patterson (if they played in the NCAA they would probably make the Sweet 16 given their roster), and once-mighty Laurinburg.

Andy Katz reports on Sonny Vaccaro's vision for basketball academies (ESPN Insider required to read the whole story)

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