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.

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

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