Recruiting Tidbits

The elite camp report inspired quite a bit of emails, so here is a follow up on the Indiana camp. http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/08/30/scouting-notes-from-saturdays-elite-camp/ My mind isn't slipping, this is a different link from the last story. Inside the Hall apparently had a mole in the Indiana Elite camp who gave them a great scouting report. I think the comments on Baker, Hicks, Hulls, and Tokoto are particularly right on. Tokoto is a phenomenal prospect and seems like a better kid but the scouts will turn their lists over a dozen times before he graduates and I don't think he'll wind up being higher than Baker or Hicks for sure and probably not better than some of the other kids mentioned in that report. That's sort of like criticizing Cindi Crawford for not being quite as sexy as Bridgett Bardot though, as the Good Mongrel reported from the Kentucky Hoopfest and Hoosier Shootout, Tokoto is the real deal and will be a wonderful player. I like Ron Patterson, Ken Kaminski, and Devontes Smith-Rivera more personally, but its early and these kids will be a lot of fun to watch the next couple of years as they drift up and down the various top 100 lists. Here is an update on Hicks. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/08/hicks-had-blast-in-bloomington.html

* Here is a link to an Insidethehall.com Muncie Central guard Jeremiah Davis interview after the elite camp where he says among other things that he could commit today, tomorow, or any time in the future (not to any specific school, but it is thought that Indiana and Ohio State are sitting pretty well with him right now). Davis is ranked #40 in the country by Rivals.com. He is an outstanding talent, a very physical guard who has the athleticism and aggressiveness to be a star in college if he continues to mature as a point guard. http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/08/31/q-a-jeremiah-davis-talks-elite-camp-recruiting/

HighMajorScoop.com had a nice IPS rundown from last week we missed. http://highmajorscoop.com/2009/08/weekend-scoop-2/ Here is a cut and paste from a few of the players with some school updates. Also check out the Scott County (KY) update on their site.

*Trey Lewis, 6-foot-1,2011, Shooting Guard, Garfield Heights, Ohio holds offers from Akron, Kent, Cleveland State, Ohio University and St. Joes. He is also getting interest from Penn State, Wisconsin, Indiana, Nevada, Michigan, Alabama, West Virginia and Xavier
* Trey Burke, 5-foot-11, 2011, Point Guard, Columbus (Northland H/S), Ohio holds offers from Butler, Akron, Kent, Ohio, James Madison, Miami-Ohio and Kent State. He visited Cincinnati and Ohio over this past wee and plans on taking visits to Penn State, Dayton, Baylor, Miami-Ohio among others.
* Treavon Jackson, 6-foot-2, 2011, Wing-Guard, Westerville (South H/S), Ohio visited Akron and Miami-Ohio this weekend. Jackson holds offers from both programs as well as Cleveland State and Ohio University. Jackson is the son of former Ohio State and NBA player Jimmy Jackson.
* Adreian Payne, 6-foot-9, 2010, PF, Dayton (Jefferson H/S), Ohio is reportedly down to four programs; West Virginia, Arizona, Michigan State and Kansas. Many still feel it’s a wild card race for Payne, but sources close say WVU and MSU are neck and neck. This should be a interesting one.
* Griffin McKenzie, 6-foot-8, 2010, SF, Cincinnati (Moeller H/S), Ohio visited Northwestern this week. Griffin is down to four programs, Xavier, Wake Forest, Northwestern and Vanderbilt.
* Rob Brandenberg, 6-foot-2, 2010, SG, Gahanna (Lincoln HS), Ohio took a unofficial visit to Ohio University this weekend. His top five are VCU, Ohio University, Wright State , Akron and Marshall. (update, Brandenberg has since committed to VCU)
* Kyle Molock, 6-foot-1, 2012, PG, from Dublin (Coffman H/S), Ohio holds offers from Ohio University, Akron, Georgia State and St. Joes. He is also getting strong interest from Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Florida International, Illinois and Purdue.

Mark Miller's Courtside blog is reporting that Vander Blue is down to five schools. Arizona (you know where you've heard that one before...vbg), UCLA, Marquette, Florida, and Wisconsin are the final five. http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/blog.aspx?f=123

Jim Reamer's outstanding web site Hoosierhoopsreport.com has been redone and has been cranking out some excellent material of late. Most recently they reported that 2012 5'9 Park Tudor point guard Yogi Ferrell has received an offer from Purdue to go along with the previous offers from Butler and Ohio State. Yogi is one of the Mongrel's favorite players to watch this summer, most recently I got to see him in Ft Wayne playing on the same team as Marquis Teague and he may not be the kind of NBA prospect Teague is on track to be, but he runs the team at least as well in my opinion. You have to check Yogi out, he's got pretty long arms for a smaller player and is really intense, the wide open eyes kind of make me think of a Mike Singletary who wasn't much taller than Yogi who is seen above in an Indy Star photo. Here is a link to get to know Yogi better if you haven't had the chance. http://www.indy.com/posts/college-coaches-finally-catch-highly-touted-yogi

Here is another outstanding link from Hoosierhoopsreport.com. It has a scholarship chart for the D1 colleges in Indiana. Wish we could get one of those for Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois it makes it a lot easier to figure out when your competition is going to drop off for a player after they receive another commitment. I see these on team websites all the time but they are rarely as efficient and easy to read as this one and he gets several schools together on it.
http://hoosierhoopsreport.com/2009/08/30/scholarship-grids/

Back to High Major Scoop for some more scoops, they are twittering that Notre Dame hosted Marcus Crider and Travis Trice this weekend and they expect Trey Burke soon as well. Notre Dame recruiting is picking up steam right now with visits expected soon from many wonderful players such as Ralston Turner, Jabari Brown, and Victor Oladipo.

And finally one of the Mongrel's original favorites was visiting Bradley recently. Coach Blevins from Hoopsreport.com tells it like it is when he says Ricardo Johnson is a top 150 talent. He shut down and put away Georgetown commitment Vee Sanford in the 2009 class in the Sweet 16 matchup in Kentucky's state tournament last year on his way to earning tournament MVP honors and leading Covington Holmes to the state title along with his trusty and jumpy sidekick Elijah Pittman. The good Mongrel is very high on Josh Sewell and Ge'lawn Guyn also, all three of those kids would appear in any version of a top 150 the Mongrel would be foolhardy enough to produce. I'll be weighing in soon enough on which of those three overlooked kids is the best but it is not an easy task and you will all be hearing from them next year in a big way from Miami, Charlotte, and wherever Johnson winds up. Anyway, enough editorializing here is the link. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/hoopsnews/ricardojohnsonvisitingbradley

Elite Camp Weekend

With school back in session, many schools are looking to capitalize by bringing in recruits before official visits begin for the seniors and the underclassmen go back to the books. Purdue, Indiana, and Marquette had big turn outs for their elite camps. Purdue and Marquette had 2 day elite camps this weekend and Indiana's was a smaller one day event that had less than 1/3 as many kids as their June Elite camp. Other schools such as Syracuse are also holding elite camps this weekend, they were expecting Tobias Harris and other players of interest to local schools.

Marquette had the most impressive roster this time around headlined by Vander Blue, a 2010 kid from Madison who decommitted from Wisconsin a few months ago. Analysts have Blue in the top 50 in the country, with some recent revisions getting him well into the top 30 with some scouting services. I continue to hear Arizona is strong with Blue but he spent a lot of time with the Badgers since his decommitment. Obviously if he winds up at Marquette it would be a deadly blow to Bo Ryan who needs a headliner type of recruit desperately as Marquette continues to bring in top talent and the younger classes in Wisconsin are looking loaded. Here is a list of kids from Marquette's elite camp. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/56121437.html Several hot names in the 2010 class were there including Jeremy Lamb, Justin Coleman, Reggie Smith, Cameron Clark, JJ Moore, Tarik Black, Michael Cobbins, and Jevaughn Pinkston. I have seen each of those kids on top 150 lists with Coleman and Clark being the highest ranked usually in the top 50 but varying depending on where you look. 2011 kids included Bruce Barron, Branden Dawson, Dre Henley, Wayne Blackshear, and James Siakhem among others. 2012 kids included Dejuan Marerro and Junior Lomamba.

Many of the top underclassmen from Wisconsin were in Indiana for their elite camp including JP Tokoto and some others you can read about on Peegs.com on the premium website. I'm not aware of any 2010 kids at Indiana's elite camp but this Insidethehall article said Austin Etherington, Matt Carlino, and Jeremiah Davis were among the better players. Jeremiah Davis could make the third in-state commitment in the class for Tom Crean who has been working the younger classes in Indiana tirelessly. 2012 stars at the camp included Tokoto, Jeremy Hollowell, Kellon Thomas, and TJ Bell. 2013 stars included Colin Hartman (a week after attending the Duke camp with Tokoto), Brent Scott, Bryson Scott, and in the Mongrel's opinion the best two prospects at the camp Daryl Hicks and Daryl Baker. After seeing Tokoto, Hollowell, Davis, Thomas, Hicks, and Baker multiple times this summer the good Mongrel feels Hicks and Baker are easily the best of that stellar group of kids. I haven't seen the Scott twins or Hartman yet. http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/08/30/notes-from-saturdays-elite-camp/

Purdue held a very well attended elite camp also. Dejuan Marrero (2012), and Branden Dawson (2011) were the big names and both stayed a day before going to the Marquette camp. I'll edit and paste a link to a free article if I can find some coverage of the event but so far I'm not able to. As always I suggest trying GoldandBlack.com for coverage, I always see them out at tournaments they do a great job. I've heard Mike Ramey and Spencer Turner were two of the 2011 standouts at the camp.

Marquis Teague was a late scratch from the Indiana camp and as the Insidethehall article and the earlier reports from the Good Mongrel suggest, he appears to be all but a done deal to Louisville. Here's a hot Teague rumor. http://www.straitpinkie.com/sports/a-hot-marquis-teague-rumor/

Cincinnati got a commitment from 6'8 2010 forward Justin Jackson from Florida. Jackson got the attention of several area schools in July and has the sound of a nice get for Cronin and company. ESPN has him ranked just inside the top 100 and here's a link to their report on his commitment. http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/tracker/school?schoolId=2132&page=briefingroom&season=2010&action=upsell&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fncb%2frecruiting%2ftracker%2fschool%3fschoolId%3d2132%26page%3dbriefingroom%26season%3d2010

I've been getting several great emails on the most underrated kids out there and will be doing some features on those soon I promise! Keep it coming. Ge'lawn Guyn, Brian Fabrizius, Allen Payne, Ron Patterson, and others have been mentioned recently and I'm working on some features for all of them.

Recruiting Round-up

In case you missed it, the Louisville Courier Journal's Jody Demling did a wonderful hoops recruiting chat. He covers Kentucky high school basketball as well as recruiting for Kentucky, Louisville, and Indiana. The "golden triangle" schools own 14 NCAA titles between them and all have been in the final four this decade. So he has quite a horde of fans beating his door down and got to answer quite a few questions today. Here is the link. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/08/recruiting-live-chat.html Some highlights include...

* Marquis Teague has some mixed signals out there for all three top schools but most indicators lead to UL being his final choice.
* Says in 2010 class he thinks IU will most likely end up with Kyrie Irving and still has a chance with Victor Oladipo, Jalen Kendrick, Moses Morgan, Michael Cobbins, and Jeremy Lamb. (hoopsreport.com article linked below has Cobbins' five visits already scheduled and no IU)
* 2013 superstar Daryl Hicks has the attention of UL and UK and IU has been to several of his games already.
* Said Michael Gilchrist is supposed to make the IU elite camp this weekend.
* Said UL is expecting Rod Odom and Zach Price to visit Sep 5th and JJ Moore October 2nd and UL has a good chance at all three.
* Mentioned he really likes Rakeem Christmas (IU and OSU in his final 8).
* UK in 2010 is in good shape with CJ Leslie, Terrence Jones, Doron Lamb, Josh Selby, Brandon Knight, Roscoe Smith, Cameron Clark, Tobias Harris, and Adriean Payne.
* IU in 2011 is in good shape with Marshall Plumlee, Rakeem Christmas, Jeremiah Davis, Cody Zeller, Deng Leek, Sam Thompson (Demling might be right about Leek if he recently reclassified, but last I knew Leek was 2010).
* UL and IU are expecting visits from Angel Nunez in late September.
* Cincinnati's Griffin McKenzie likes Xavier and Wake and could decide soon (not from demling but he is also considering Northwestern and Vanderbilt).
* When asked about Chane Behanon he said it was strange with the kid telling some people he was still committed and his uncle and hs coach saying he was open, but pointed out since he's letting people recruit him he's not really committed (mentioned Oklahoma State and WKU offers).
* Former UK commit Dakotah Euton is being recruited by EKU, High Point, Wofford, Coastal Carolina.
* Xavier likes Remy Abel from Eastern (Louisville).

Here are a few other tidbits the last couple of days from twitter mining...

* Duke has offered Marshall Plumlee (Bluedevilnation) and JP Tokoto (Evan Daniels).
* Dublin Coffman (Ohio) point guard Kyle Molock visited Duke, North Carolina, and Wake Forest (ONPSS).

Hoopsreport's Dustin Rumbaugh has a nice rundown on several top national targets and includes an update on Xavier Jones from Gary, Indiana. The 2010 tough as nails point guard has offers from Marquette, Indiana State, and Dayton and will be transferring to Ohio for his senior year. Also Dematha (Maryland) guard Jerrian Grant has Depaul and Notre Dame as two of his final four schools. Rumbaugh also says Macari Brooks (photo above is from a Midstatehoops.com article) will be visiting Louisville with Wayne Blackshear on September 5th. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/hoopsnews/wednesdaybuzzerbeaters
*

Updates and Commitments: August 24

Indianapolis Lawrence North's Justin Martin (Rivals #87) will return for his senior year at Lawrence North where he averaged 11 points per game as a junior. Martin has ended his recruitment with a commitment to Xavier. Martin is a very good shooter and can be a very good defender and is a very talented kid whom the good Mongrel looks forward to seeing in the A10. The Mongrel is a few days late on this story but here is some of the praise out there for Martin. http://www.ny2lasports.com/NY2LA%20Sports%20Articles/MartintoXavier.htm

Kurt Stubbs from JJHuddle.com has several interesting things to say in his Ohio hoops recruiting rundown from the 21st. http://www.jjhuddle.com/blog/post-detail.php?p=3246

* 2011 big man Zach Price (Rivals #66) from St Edwards (Lakewood) has offers from Louisville, Miami (Fl), Michigan State, Ohio State, Wake Forest, and Wisconsin.
* Jakarr Sampson (Rivals #100) is a 6'8 small forward in the 2011 class from Akron St Vincent-St Mary's. He lists offers from Cincinnati, Xavier, Akron, and Dayton and plans visits to Ohio State and Michigan State this summer.
* Trey Burke (Rivals #105) is a point guard from Columbus Northland. He has offers from Ohio, Cleveland State, Akron, James Madison, Kent State, Butler, Miami, and Stephen F Austin and visited Cincinnati on the 21st.
* 5'7 point guard Stevie Taylor (Rivals #150) also has offers from Ohio, Akron, James Madison, Miami, and others. Taylor is one of those little guys who always comes out on top but people tend to try to temper their expectations because one day the competition will be too big, but so far he's still impossible for anyone to guard. Picture above is Taylor from 4.bp.blogspot.com.

Milwuakee Hamilton's Elgin Cook has accepted a scholarship to play for Iowa State. He is a very athletic 6'6 kid in the 2011 class. Scroll down to the second article on the blog for more. http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/blog.aspx?f=123

Pittsburgh commitment Cameron Wright has a nice profile in a new article on the best players not included in the top 100 by ESPN. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4411749

Chicagohoops has a nice piece on Ben Brackney from Lincoln HS. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/benbrackney2.html Brackney is a 6'5 shooting wing forward with offers from Eastern Illinois, Bucknell, Murray State, SIU-Edwardsville, and other schools. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/benbrackney2.html

Lots of news coming from Demling's blog as always. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/blog.html

* Chane Behanan (Rivals #95) (notice corrected and wise spelling) has received an offer from Western Kentucky.
* Marquis Teague (Rivals #2) seems to be rushing in Indiana, Purdue, and Kentucky visits before his season starts. He was on Kentucky's campus this weekend and will be at Purdue and Indiana's elite camps this coming weekend. This part is the Mongrel editorializing but the kid has all but spelled out his preference to Louisville the last couple of weeks, looks like he's trying to give a last look to all comers before pulling the trigger. Let me know if I turn out to be wrong about that one loyal readers...
* Dematha (Maryland) athlete Victor Oladipo is expected to visit Indiana September 3rd and 4th.
Carlton Brundidge praise from NBE Blog. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/24/recruiting-notebook-rod-odom-carlton-brundidge-carson-desrosiers/ Michigan, Michigan State, Wake Forest, Oklahoma, Syracuse, and Providence are interested in him.

Teague, Kearney, and Other Updates

Marquis Teague is visiting UK this weekend per Jody Demling. He will then attend the Indiana University and Purdue elite camps next weekend. His father says pay no attention to internet rumors about where he will attend school and says all six schools are still involved including Wake, Louisville, and Cincinnati. Marquis a few weeks ago was quoted in one article saying he was close to committing and in another article the day before saying Louisville was his favorite so I'm not real sure how much that has changed aside from his father's denials that Pitino's sex scandal has impacted their opinion of Louisville. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/blog.html



Detroit Southeastern guard Brandon Kearney says he will likely decide next summer but his early leaders are Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Florida International is well in the mix as well. He lists several other schools including Kentucky and several other national powers are interested including Florida and Oklahoma. http://www.detnews.com/article/20090820/SPORTS0201/908200427/1004/SPORTS/U-M++MSU++OSU+are+early+leaders+for+Detroit+Southeastern+s+Brandan+Kearney The photo of Kearney is from Sam Webb's Detroit News column previously linked.



Lincoln Park (Illinois) 6'7 power forward Mike Gabriel is considering Brown and Penn who have offered as well as Northern Illinois and Detroit. He also has interest from Yale, Marquette, and Depaul. Gabriel played for the Mac Irvin Fire program this summer, usually for their 16U squad because he is young for a 2010 kid. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/20/class-of-2010-intro-mike-gabriel/



Decatur Eisenhower guard Jarod Oldham has picked up an offer from Buffalo to go with his previous offer from Eastern Illinois. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/joldham2.html

Here is an IndyStar article on five stock raisers from July. They mention Cody Zeller, Jeremy Hollowell, Nic Moore, Marquis Teague, and Ron Patterson. http://www.indystar.com/article/20090820/SPORTS0615/90820059/1361/SPORTS0615/Zeller++Teague++Hollowell+among+big+July+jumpers

Bowling Green, Loyola, and North Dakota have offered Wisconsin Lutheran's Flavien Davis. Davis gets pretty polarizing reviews including some who have ranked him in the top 100 nationally and some who don't like his game even at the mid-major level. He got some good reviews at Indiana University's elite camp in June and had a huge 38 point game including a half court game winner at the Adidas May Classic which drew him some great reviews and a couple of quite games in front of national scouts including Evan Daniels which drew more bad ones. Davis is still being recruited by Xavier, Ball State, Oregon State, and other programs and might wait till spring to try to prove he can be consistent. http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/blog.aspx?f=123

Colt Darling (Ohio) is on the campus of Wright State today according to National Preps' twitter (ONPSS).

Gibbons top 150 for 2010, Other Recruiting Buzz

Before getting to veteran hoops talent scout Bob Gibbons update for his 2010 top 150 list, the Good Mongrel would like to mention some other hubub of note.

* Detroit County Day's Ray MacCallum Jr is planning on attending the Duke elite camp this weekend. He, Kyrie Irving, and Brandon Knight are Duke's primary point guard targets. MacCallum Jr is also strongly considering UCLA and Kansas among other schools. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/hoopsnews/mccallumgetsgeneticgiftandknowledgeofthegamefromfather
* Bowling Green star and Cincinnati decommitment Chase Behannon has been contacted by UK, Georgia, West Virginia, and Alabama among other schools since his mysterious and shifting decommitment. He has guardians in Cincinnati that weren't on board with the decommitment but they appeared to endorse that the Bowling Green guardian who said he had decommitted was handling his recruitment. I don't know what to say about that but here's a recruiting update from Demling that wisely avoids the confusing side of it altogether. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/08/uk-calling-on-in-state-prospect.html
* Wisconsin has sort of offered Port Washington shooting guard John Gasser. They offered a "four for five" deal where Gasser would walk on as a freshman and get a scholarship the next four years. Gasser has legit offers from so many good schools he seems unlikely to take that offer but if Vander Blue doesn't re-up with Wisconsin he may get the four for four offer he's getting from Maryland, Northwestern, and other good schools. http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/blog.aspx?f=123 The "quick hitters" section also mentions a Ball State offer to 7'0 center Ben Mills. The photo of Mills above is from Livinglakecountry.com the local newspaper.
* Insidethehall twitters that 2013 Jeffersonville phenom Daryl Baker will be at Indiana University's elite camp last weekend in August.

Gibbons has his new top 150 list out for post-summer 2010. Here are some players of note for each state in the Mongrel's radius and some of the recruits playing for schools in that neighborhood...

Illinois: Jerome Richmond (UI) #18, Crandall Head (UI) #42, Myers Leonard (UI) #44, Lenzelle Smith (Ohio St) #87, Brandon Spearman (Dayton) #100, Ahmad Starks (Oregon St) #120, Anthony Johnson (Purdue) #124, Ben Brust (Iowa) #136, Alex Dragecevich (Notre Dame) #164,

Indiana: DeShawn Thomas (Ohio St) #6, Dominique Fergeson (Fla Int) #33, Eric Atkins (out of state Notre Dame commitment) #51, Justin Martin #56, Russell Byrd (MSU) #77, David Williams (out of state Indiana commitment) #107, Terone Johnson (Purdue) #110, Travis Carroll (Purdue) #144, Donnie Hale (Purdue) #168, Jesse Berry (Dayton) #175,

Kentucky: Josh Langford (out of state Louisville commitment) #67, Curtis Washington (USC) #145, Ge'lawn Guyn (Charlotte) #160,

Michigan: Keith Appling (MSU) #23, Ray MacCallum Jr #39, Evan Smotrycz (out of state Michigan commitment) #55, Trey Zeigler #63, Tim Hardaway (out of state Michigan commitment) #99, Alex Guana (MSU) #100, Jon Horford #123,

Ohio: Jarred Sullinger (Ohio St) #1, Adriean Payne #28, Jordan Seibert (Ohio St) #41, Juwan Staten (out of state Dayton commit) #47, JD Weatherspoon (Ohio St) #73, Aaron Craft #78, Cameron Wright (Pittsburgh) #125, Jordan Laytham (out of state Xavier recruit) #133,

Boyd out at WKU, Other Recruiting Updates

The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers have quite a bit of recruiting momentum recently and have developed strong relationships with some key New Jersey recruits as well as taking advantage of an upsurge in talent in Kentucky. Unfortunately they suffered quite a recruiting loss as Terrence Boyd has been released from WKU, he was the first of their big name recruits to get the ball rolling last year. http://www.wkusports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&ATCLID=204775582&DB_OEM_ID=5400

Austin Burgett from Avon, Indiana picked up offers from Ohio and Xavier this weekend.

A Turkish phenom is getting some attention. Enes Kanter is being called a top ten prospect in the class of 2010 and he's come out of nowhere and is working out in Chicago. He'll attend Findley Prep, no word yet on possible schools.

http://highmajorscoop.com/2009/08/turkey-phenom-in-the-states/

Ahcraf Yacoubou is a 6'4 wing in the 2011 class that has UK in his final three along with UConn and Villanova. UK is also involved with 6'1 New Zeland center Dan Barto per Zagsblog. http://www.zagsblog.com/2009/08/17/recruiting-update-jj-moore-jamail-jones-trevor-releford-achraf-yacoubou/

Flyershoops is twittering that former UK commitment and Clark County star Vinnie Zollo from the class of 2011 has a Dayton offer. Zollo is a hard working and versatile power forward at about 6'7 and plays with Indiana Elite in the summer. He is pictured above from a Courier Journal article.

Springfield Lamphier 5'10 point guard Karl Madison is close to a decision on schools. He wants to decide before his high school season starts and lists Nevada, Depaul, Northwestern, Drake, Northern Iowa, Illinois State, and Cal Poly. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/kmadison.html

And checking in with Illinois Prep Bullseye, they have some recruiting updates including offers to some kids and the lack of offers to others. Here is the link and some bullet points... http://ilprepbullseye.com/page20.html

* Reggie Smith has not been offered by Indiana University. It has been reported by a few media outlets that he has. Right now Depaul, Marquette, and USC are in the best shape with him.
* Rayvonte Rice visited Drake this weekend and they are in great shape with him but he's not in a hurry.
* Hayden Hoerdemann visited Southern Illinois and has offers from Illinois State, Evansville, and Eastern Illinois.
* Duje Dukan has offers from Loyola, Miami, Fairfield, Evansville, UW-Green Bay, and Holy Cross.

Sealy and Newby Commit, Ohio Recruiting and Other Updates

Ohio State has offered 2011 prospect Trever Cooney who played with Team Final this summer. He previously had several offers including Notre Dame and will be attending the Duke Elite Camp. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/15/pitt-ohio-state-offer-trevor-cooney-duke-interested-maurice-walker-tyler-olander-chris-martin-updates/ Mega huge Canadian import Maurice Walker is also being recruited by Kentucky and Marquette among other schools. At the Kentucky Hoopfest Walker was pretty impressive. He isn't a big stats guy but he is a legit 6'10 and wide and I was pretty impressed with how much he likes to lean on and beat down his opposition.

Here is an August 13 preview of Depaul done by NBE Basketball. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/13/depaul-summer-report/ It gives an overview of what they lost and what they return and touches on what I hear everyone saying about Depaul. They hired some impressive local recruiters as assistants and are doing a great job getting involved with lots of good recruits but will kids pull the trigger on Depaul when most observers think Wainright won't survive another brutal season? Its quite a dilemma for Blue Deamon recruits.

Jeff Johnson of the loaded Champaign Centennial HS (Rayvonte Rice, Josh Piper) team played really well at the Hoosier Shootout this year in front of the Mongrel. He has soft touch in traffic and has a dependable mid-range shot and bangs for rebounds well. According to Chicagohoops he just received an offer from UI-Chicago.

AaronsUKBBBlog has twittered that Dayton area big man Adriean Payne is going to host an in-home visit with Kansas coach Bill Self on September 14th. Payne is one of the elite prospects in the country and is being recruited by several schools including Kentucky.

Several schools will be hosting Elite Camps this month including Marquette, Indiana, Purdue, and others. Some elite camps have already been held including Iowa and the CP3 elite camp. I'll try to surf twitter for some updates on who is attending from time to time. I've seen that 2010 Detroit star Ray McCallum Jr was at the CP3 camp and 2012 Indianapolis star Jeremy Hollowell is planning on attending the Marquette camp from their twitter accounts so far. Iowa hosted several elite players including 2013 top player nationally Peter Jok, all the Iowa commitments, and some really good prospects like Will Artino and others. Arkansas hosted Dre Henley and others as we have mentioned.

Lots of Louisville news out there but this is a family friendly blog so we can't dip too deeply in that well. Louisville appears to be strong with several important recruits including Marquis Teague in 2011 and JJ Moore in 2010. Moore just cut his list to 5 schools and Louisville made the cut (along with Marquette). Pitino seems to have stopped the blood letting a bit as UL had lost a couple of recruits in recent months (Justin Martin and Jeremy Tyler) along with ace recruiter Richard Pitino who defected to Florida. The Indianapolis Star's Kyle Neddenreiep says 2011 Lawrence North stars Michael Chandler and Ryan Taylor are firm commitments despite Illinois and other schools still trying to recruit Chandler. http://www.indystar.com/article/20090814/SPORTS/90814051/1004/SPORTS/LN+recruits+stay+committed+to+Pitino

According to Evan Daniels, Jabs Newby of the loaded Mountain State Academy basketball program has given a verbal commitment to Eastern Kentucky. Newby is a 6'1 guard.

High Major Scoop has a great profile on 6'3 2011 Westerville South (Columbus) wing Treavon Jackson. Jackson was on the loaded All Ohio Red 2011 team this last summer and has been a hot name in recruiting circles lately. He has offers from Ohio, Akron, Cleveland State, and Miami as well as recent interest from Wisconsin and Dayton. http://highmajorscoop.com/2009/08/the-real-jacko/

High Major Scoop also has a twitter feed and they just said Craig Sealy gave a verbal commitment to Bowling Green. Sealy is a 6'7 forward who played with C-Biz and All-Ohio Red in summer ball and goes to Brookhaven HS(Columbus).

Here is a couple of great rundowns of the top recruits in 2010 in Ohio and their recruiting picture from JJHuddle.com. http://www.jjhuddle.com/news/articles/2009/8/14/hoop-news-notes-and-nuggets-several-players-adding-schools-of-interest-transfer-updates And here is a second one from a couple of weeks ago. http://www.jjhuddle.com/news/articles/2009/7/23/ohio-hoops-recruiting-news-aau-season-nearing-an-end I'll bullet point some of the school lists on uncommitted prospects.

* Jakarr Sampson's favorite is Cincinnati but he's hearing from Michigan State, Ohio State, Pittsburgh, and Miami (Florida). Sampson played for the 2011 King James Shooting Stars. NY2LA has Sampson ranked 14th in the country, he is pictured above from the JJhuddle article.

* Devonte Beard is another 2011 prospect who plays for Akron SVSM and King James. Cincinnati is also recruiting Beard.

* Canton (Hoover) 5'10 point guard Niles Evans (2011) has an offer from Wright State where his brother plays as well as Akron.

* Columbus Northland's 2011 point guard Trey Burke is visiting Ohio this weekend and will be visiting Cincinnati, Penn State, and Baylor in the next few weeks. He's a 6'0 point who played for All Ohio Red this summer.

* Strongville wing Aaron White is another All Ohio Red player who visited Akron yesterday and will be visiting Penn State on September 5th.

Mike Pegram of Peegs.com is twittering that Marshall Plumlee and his family are visiting IU today and tomorow. I've had the chance to see quite a bit of Plumlee this summer and he's going to be really good. He's already 6'11 and is a hard worker and smart player. He doesn't do much outside of the paint right now but knows how to get open and competes well on defense. He visited Michigan last week and has visited Florida already this summer.

ESPN Rankings Updated

ESPN released their updated 2010 and 2011 rankings yesterday. I'm going to cheat a little bit to show more depth than the top 100. They do player evaluations beyond the top 100 for many more prospects and if you do the right kind of search you can view them in sequence, effectively seeing the order they rank kids well into the hundreds. This expanded rankings includes some prep school kids so they won't exactly match the rankings you see on their top 100, I'll look at the top 300 kids for 2010 and 150 on 2011 as there are still many not evaluated. I'm going to try to find all the kids from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky that ESPN has ranked, give the approximated numerical order in bold and in parenthesis I'll include their Scouts.inc rating which goes from 70-100 for D1 prospects. Generally they rate 70-79 low D1, 80-89 mid major, and 90-100 high major. Kids they know about but don't evaluate enough get a 40 automatically. I'll include the ones on here rated 80 or higher and the school they committed to will also be in bold if they have committed. They have many more national scouts than Rivals or Scout and most of their contributors were coaches so it has a very different flavor than the Internet recruiting services.

Illinois

2010: Jerome Richmond Illinois (95) #19, Meyers Leonard Illinois (95) #53, Jay Harris (94) #68, Crandal Head Illinois (94) #74, Lenzelle Smith Ohio St (94) #76, Brandon Spearman Dayton (90) # 151, Anthony Johnson Purdue (90) #164, Ahmad Starks Oregon St (89) #204, Reggie Smith (88) #237 Alex Dragecevich Notre Dame (87) #252, Karl Madison (86), Alex Rossi (86), Eric Gaines (85), Rayvonte Rice (85), Jordan Threloff (85), Ben Brust (83), Chris Klimek (83), Mike McCall (82), Tommy Woolridge (82), Levonte Dority (82), Fred Heldring (82), William Triggs (82), Deandre McCamey (81), Wayne Simon (81), Dwayne Evans (80), James Reynolds 3 (80)

2011: Wayne Blackshear (96) #24, Chasson Randle (96) #31, Tracy Abrams Illinois (95) #41, Ryan Boatright (94) #55, Mike Shaw (93) #75, Sam Thompson (91) #92, Bruce Barron (91) #95, Macarri Brook (89) #140,

Indiana

2010: DeShaun Thomas Ohio St (96) #13, Justin Martin (95) #42, Dominique Fergeson (95) #47, Russell Byrd Michigan St (94) #57, Travis Carrol Purdue (93) #106, Donnie Hale Purdue (91) #137, Xavier Jones (90) #147, Terone Johnson Purdue (89) #184, Jesse Berry Dayton (87) #247, Ethan Jacobs Ohio (86) #299, Jan Mahlen (85), Eric Fromm (84), Andre Hampton (83), Roddy Richardson (83), Enique Mason (82),

2011: Marquis Teague (98) #4, Michael Chandler Louisville (96) #16, Marshall Plumlee (96) #28, Branden Dawson (95) #39, Matt Carlino Indiana (94) #44, Darwin "Dee" Davis Xavier (93) #66, Ryan Taylor Louisville (93) #76, Austin Etherington Indiana (89) #146,

Kentucky

2010: Dakota Euton (91) #136, Ge'lawn Guyn Charlotte (89) #195, Elijah Pittman (87) #267, Matt St John (87) #271, Curtis Washington USC (87) #274, Ricardo Johnson (85), Elijah Justice (85) , Josh Sewell (85), Chad Jackson (83), Jeremiah Johnson (82), Clint Stepp (82), Alexander Nicolic (80),

2011: Chase Behannon (93) #63, George Fant (90) #114,

Michigan

Trey Zeigler (95) #27, Keith Appling Michigan State (95) #36, Ray MacCallum Jr (95) #37, Alex Guana Mich St (90) #160, Isiah Sykes (89) #205, Maurice Jones (87) #258, Roy Marble Iowa (86) #279, Brian Coleman (83), Brian Coleman(83), Kevonte Martin-Manley (83), Mike Talley (82), Muhammed Conde (80),

2011: Amir Williams (96) #17, Carlton Brundidge (95) #42, Brandon Kearney (91) #98, LeDonte Hinton (90) #120,

Ohio

2010: Jarred Sullinger Ohio St (98) #2, Adreian Payne (95) #24, Juwan Staten Dayton (94) #60, Jordan Sibert Ohio St (94) #71, Aaron Craft Ohio St (92) #116, JD Weatherspoon Ohio St (92) #130, Nick Kellog (90) #149, Cameron Wright Pittsburgh (88) #212, Geron Johnson (88) #225, Griffin McKenzie (87) #264, Allen Payne (87) #266, Ralph Hill Dayton (86) #297, Rob Brandenburg (85), John Enger Akron (84), Derek Jackson Central Mich (84), Quinton Rollins Miami (83), Craig Sealy (83), Ryan Bass (82), Kevin Gray (82), Eric Lefeld (81), Terrance Marshall (81), Reginald Lewis (80)

2011: Zach Price (91) #100, James Price (90) #129, Jakarr Sampson (90) #131, Markus Crider (89) #143, Anton Grady (89) #149,

Wright State and IUPUI land commitments.

Mount Vernon (Indiana) has three prospects who have been drawing attention from most of the mid-majors coaches in the mid-west. On Wednesday PJ Hubert committed to Shoeless Ron Hunter and his IUPUI Jaguars. Hubert is a 6'5 wing forward with what Hoosier Hoops Report called the best shot in Indiana in the class of 2010 earlier this summer. Here is the Indy star link on his commitment (photo on right is Hubert from that story). http://www.indystar.com/article/20090812/SPORTS0615/90812054/1361/Mount%20Vernon%20guard%20commits%20to%20IUPUI?GID=ul9/gu66RjQzNB1XTyw0WxINuEg30ueOhD858bKmzoQ%3D Daniel Turner and DeAndre Davis are also mid-major prospects from Mount Vernon, good luck to Hubert and teammates it'll be a treat to follow their progress.

Here is another link from the Indianapolis Star with an update on Jack Isenberger from Zionsville. He has offers from Western Michigan and Miami and interest from Davidson, Butler, and Northwestern. http://blogs.indystar.com/recruitingcentral/2009/08/isenbarger-deci.html

Brad Brownell is one of the best coaches in the business, and he's off to a strong start for Wright State's 2010 recriuting class. After already securing a commitment from Jeffersonville's Kegan Clark, Brownell stayed local this time around and received a commitment from Vandalia Butler's AJ Pacher. Pacher is a 6'9 forward with a nice stroke from three point range. He hit 43% from deep as a junior.

Here is a link to a recruiting rundown of top 2010 prospects in the mid-west. Some of the players mentioned include Trey Zeigler, Ray MacCallum Jr, Xavier Jones, Reggie Smith, Flavien Davis, Maurice Jones, Justin Martin, Mike McCall, Adriean Payne, Walter Pitchford, Storm Sanders, Colin Voss, and several others from Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, and elsewhere. http://www.ny2lasports.com/Midwest2010prospectsontheboard.htm

Duke is getting involved in the Chasson Randle recruitment. They plan on evaluating him this fall at school. No offer has been extended yet but Duke is pretty stingy with offers to younger players so kids often let them in late. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page24.html

Decatur Eisenhower (Il) guard Jarod Oldham has been offered by Eastern Illinois. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/joldham1.html

Demling has a nice update on Taylor Wischmeier, a 6'7 forward from Brownstown. He was excellent for Team Southern Indiana 17U this summer and is drawing interest from rising Ivy League power Cornell, Tennessee Martin, Austin Peay, Belmont, and others.

http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/08/interest-grows-for-so-indiana-star.html

2010 Illinois HS recruit updates, other news and rumblings.

The Hoops Report blog in the Sun Times has a wonderful article updating several key players who are being heavily recruited by high majors and mid majors from the Chicago area in the class of 2010. Here is the link for more of a breakdown and scouting report on them, but the most likely schools according to the Hoops Report are as follows... http://blogs.suntimes.com/hoopsreport/

* Phillip Jackson 6'8 pf from Providence St Mel are Illinois State and Southern Illinois. He also says Jackson is considering Depaul, Marquette, Iowa State, and Providence.
* Mike McCall 6'1 combo guard from Foreman is most likely to go to Indiana State, Illinois State, Saint Louis, or Detroit. McCall enjoyed a recent visit to Illinois State.
* Jordan Threloff is a 6'9 forward from Dekalb is listed with a bunch of schools and no favorite including Depaul, Southern Illinois, Bradley, Western Michigan, Illinois State, and some others.
* Duje Dukan is a 6'8 forward from Deerfield who the Hoops Report thinks is high major quality but is slipping through the cracks and the schools best positioned to get him are Miami, UW Green Bay, William and Mary, George Washington, Evansville, Loyola, and Valparaiso.
* Reggie Smith is a 6'0 point guard from Harvey (Thornton) who had a huge July. Hoops Report says the five schools recruiting him hardest are UCLA, USC, Marquette, Depaul, and Indiana. Smith has no leaders and plans to take all his visits and then decide.
* Levonte Dority is a 6'1 point guard from Foreman who says Baylor, Indiana, New Mexico, South Florida, and Marquette are recruiting him the hardest.
* Dwayne Evans is a 6'5 wing from Nequa Valley who is rumored to be close to a Northwestern verbal. Hoops Report says the schools best positioned for Evans if that doesn't work out are Loyola, Drake, Toledo, Western Michigan, and Fairfield.

Jody Demling has some great "nuggets" to pass along today. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/blog.html

* Indiana and Ohio State made the cut down to Rakeem Christmas' final 8 schools.
* Michigan has offered 6'8 forward Rod Odom who is being pursued by UConn and UL as well.
* Michigan hosted a visit from 6'11 class of 2011 center Marshall Plumlee of Warsaw, Indiana. Plumlee is going to prep school in North Carolina but visited Michigan recently. He has been on campus before and is being pursued hard by Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue, and other schools of interest.
* Lawrence North forward and former Louisville commitment Justin Martin is hearing from Marquette, Kentucky, Xavier, Depaul, and other schools.
* Ricardo Johnson's offer list keeps expanding. He now has offers from Western Kentucky, Bradley, Ohio, Central Michigan, Drake, Duquesne, and Marshall.

* JD Weatherspoon committed to Ohio State. He played with the dominant All-Ohio Red squad this summer with several other OSU commitments. They disproved the silly notions around some other loaded AAU squads that too much talent makes it hard to win as they won almost every tournament they played in. http://bucknuts.com/index.php/Basketball-Recruiting-Article/buckeyes-land-basketball-commitment-from-jd-weatherspoon/menu-id-1346.html This Bucknuts article has some links to some video on "Air Spoon". Weatherspoon was committed to Xavier until Sean Miller left and opened up and has been pursued hard by several programs since then. Weatherspoon ironically will take the spot of a kid OSU gave the cold shoulder too to force open the spot. Cameron Wright has since had a much bigger summer and drawn scholarship offers from Michigan State, Georgia Tech, Indiana, Wisconsin, and finally landed at Pittsburgh. It will be interesting to follow the careers of the two Ohio natives.

* Michigan hosted Marshall Plumlee and he told Sam Webb in a scout.com article he will be visiting Virginia later in the month and has already visited Florida and Indiana. The picture above is Plumlee taken in May by the Indinapolis Star's Rod Goebel.

* There is no such person as Dead Snow. This message will self destruct immediately after mentioning Dead Snow. Dead Snow is always watching.

* Future mega huge 2013 prospect Daryl Hicks has enrolled at North Oldham and says he is being recruited by Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Xavier, Missouri, and Butler already.

More Commitments and Recruiting Buzz.

* The good Mongrel has served fair warning that Crishawn Hopkins was close to committing to Butler, and today Hoosier Hoops Report has confirmed he committed to the Butler Bulldogs. http://hoosierhoopsreport.com/

* The above link to Hoosier Hoops Report also has a story on TC Howe (Indianapolis) senior 6'8 small forward Jordan Manual as well as sophomore 5'7 point guard PJ Boutte both committing to Ray McCallum and University of Detroit. Here's a little more from the Indy Star's recruiting blog. http://blogs.indystar.com/recruitingcentral/2009/08/howe-duo-decide.html Boutte is pictured above in an Indy Star photo.

* Detroit has also offered 6'5 wing Kyle Clevenger of Urbana HS. http://midstatehoops.com/v5/2009/08/07/clevenger-picking-up-offers/

* Another Midstate Hoops article with mention of Culver Military Academy's (Indiana) Travis Britt drawing recruiting interest from Dayton, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, and Drake. http://midstatehoops.com/v5/2009/08/07/culvers-travis-britt-very-happy-with-summer-basketball/

* Another move the good Mongrel warned about went down. Cameron Wright committed to Pittsburgh. Wright had been recruited heavily by Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan State, Cleveland State, and other programs after being given the cold shoulder from Thad Matta who needed a ride for Adriene Payne. Payne recently cut OSU from his list. OSU is thought to be in good shape with Xavier decommitment JD Weatherspoon to fill that ride. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/10/pitt-adds-cameron-wright-to-2010-class/

* While on the subject of decommitments, 2012 superstar Chase Behanon recently moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky from Cincinnati. This last week he has attended new hometown Western Kentucky University's elite camp and decommitted from Cincinnati. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/08/doors-open-for-behanan.html Cincinnati will still be considered. Apparently there is poor communication from Behannon's Bowling Green camp to his family in Cincinnati as there are disputed opinions on his decommitment. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/11/chane-behanan-rayvonte-rice-updates/

* The last NBE blot link in the Behannon blurb mentions Ravonte Rice will be visiting Drake on Wednesday.

* The Xavier Muskateers accepted a commitment from Jay Canty. http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=blog05&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3afdda4dab-ab39-43a7-8ba8-36da2f75a889Post%3a585f6ebb-be07-42a3-b03a-7dd0cb31be4a&sid=sitelife.cincinnati.com

* Bowling Green picked up a commitment from Cameron Black, a 6'9 kid from Roosevelt HS in Kent. http://highmajorscoop.com/2009/08/bowling-green-adds-black-to-list/

* Another High Major Scoop artricle, this time Rob Brandenburg update. Brandenburg is a 6'2 shooting guard from Gahanna, Ohio. He played with the Mustang Ballerz in the summer. According to the link, he is a 2010 prospect who is going to be taking visits this fall to his school list which includes Butler, Akron, Wright State, and Loyola. http://highmajorscoop.com/2009/08/1-word-rob/

Fergeson to FIU, and Dre Henley in Arkansas, other updates.

* Dre Henley is a 6'6 small forward and considered one of the top players in Illinois in 2011, the Hoops Report has him as the second best player in the state in 2011. According to the recruiting guy blog Henley is playing well at the Arkansas elite camp. The photo at the right is from NY2LA's web site. http://recruiting.arkansasonline.com/index.php/2009/08/07/late-night-camp-tidbits/



* Former Indianapolis Lawrence North forward Dominique Fergeson has committed to coach Zeke Thomas at Florida International. Fergeson should be one of the most talented recruits ever to go to the Sun Belt. If Thomas gets him to stay for a few years he could really pay dividends.

* Indianapolis native Deven Williams claims offers from Indiana, Marquette, Oregon State, IUPUI, Indiana State and Southern Miss. He played this summer with the Naptown Ballers but is going to a prep school. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/08/illinois-wolves-16-u-team-has-big-east-targets/ Williams drew some great reviews in Merrillville at the End of Summer Slam when the Naptown Ballers made it to the championship game. Here is a description quoted from the link that follows from a report on him from an NC Tech game this February. "Devin Williams (NC Tech) - Led NC Tech to the victory. Williams is a 6' strong, athletic point guard. He handled the ball very well, and attacked the rim all game long. He was able to find open teammates off his dribble drives and was capable of knocking down three pointers (needs to improve consistency). Williams best asset was his combination of strength and breaking his defender down off the dribble; he displayed a nasty cross over and is a D-I lock.
" http://www.scoutsfocus.com/Articles/pattersontourney.html

* The above NBE blog link has video from several of the 16U Illinois Wolves including Nana Egwu, Jacob Williams, and Chasson Randle.

* The Nike Global Games are ongoing in Portland, Oregon and the Adidas Nations event is ongoing in Dallas, Texas. Both events have several players either from our neighborhood or being recruited by key schools. I haven't tried to keep up for the blog because most of those kids are top 50 national type of players and that isn't my focus here but check Oregonlive, Portland's wonderful newspaper the Oregonian has a web site and has box scores, updates, and video from several of the games. Kyrie Irving, Doron Lamb, and other players of local interest had big games yesterday at the Global Games.
http://highschoolsports.oregonlive.com/news/article/-1054256946684675396/the-nike-global-challenge-day-one-recap/ The Adidas Nations has its own website and will be posting the championship game live this evening at 6:30 PM. The semi-final game is at 3:30. http://www.eastbay.com/promotion/promoId:5003919/adidas-nations/?SID=6206&cm_mmc=Redirects-_-eastbay-_-adidasnations_-null/ USA 2010 will be playing Team Canada in the final. Several kids of interest to local schools and some local players are in the event including Marquis Teague (USA 2011), Devontes Smith-Rivera (Latin America), Cody Zeller (USA 2011), Mason Plumlee (USA 2011) and others.

* I have received word from someone that I normally trust that the above offers for Deven Williams to Marquette and Indiana might not be accurate, but unfortunately I still have no direct knowledge if they are accurate or not. The good Mongrel loves to dig up obscure links and rely on some regular sources such as NBE for hot off the presses updates on offers, school lists, visits, etc but just in case it isn't clear I want to underscore that when I say "so and so claims an offer" or "so and so tells so and so in this link they have an offer" I am not vouching for the accuracy of the information. Even if no kids exaggerated their offers, they are often so ambiguous that especially younger kids mix up "I want you to play for my school" and "I'm offering you a scholarship" and things like that. But when a kid claims an offer even if he is wrong you at least know that the school is recruiting him hard enough so that he thinks he has one and kids get offers all the time that the wisest observers didn't think they would so without direct knowledge to contradict a report I'll just pass them on and let people do what they want. If the Mongrel says "so and so has an offer" then the Mongrel believes they do. If the Mongrel says "so and so claims an offer" or "so and so told blog x he has an offer" then that's just what it is.

Crishawn Hopkins and Cameron Wright close to verbals? Other updates...

* Mongrel favorite Crishawn Hopkins appears close to committing to Butler according to an Indy Star article. Hopkins is back playing for Manual (Indianapolis) and should have a huge senior year. He's about 6'0 and thin but has amazing hops (for you readers older than 35 that is a leaping reference not a brewing reference). Hopkins can shoot, handle the ball, distribute, he is explosive and should give Terone Johnson a run for his money as best player in Indianapolis in the 2010 class. I'm not sure he can defend like Johnson, but Hopkins is a talent and should have a big year. According to this Kyle Neddenriep article he has 15 offers and is still considering Wright State and Virginia. http://blogs.indystar.com/recruitingcentral/2009/08/another-butler.html I set the video bar at the side to search "U.S.S.S.A. Nationals Slam Dunk" and there is a lot of video from the slam dunk competition there which Hopkins won. Photo from right is from USSSA Nationals last week.

* In any game, the counter-punch is critical. Big serves get all the attention, but the guy who puts the ball back in play is the one who is consistent. Louisville was planning on landing Fab Mello but that ship sailed. According to Mike Hughes of Editor and Publisher Louisville has turned to Rod Odom as a big in the 2010 class and offered this week. It is a premium article so I won't go into more detail, but check it out if you are a Card fan. Lots of times the guys who are juniors and seniors leading teams to the elite 8 or final four were not the first kid on the recruiting list. http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=2&c=885079 Odom is a 6'8 forward from Middlesex (Mass) School.

* NBE Blog has an update on Cleveland star Cameron Wright who is visiting Pittsburgh on Saturday and might be close to verballing with them. Wright told NBE that he had a good feeling about Pittsburgh but wanted to see it for himself. Michigan State, Indiana, and Wisconsin watched Wright quite a bit in July. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/06/big-east-visit-on-tap-for-cameron-wright/

* Redhawkinsider.com has an excellent free story on fast rising Ohio senior to be Jon Harris. Harris has grown six inches the last year and has found himself 6'7 with guard skills and several nice D1 scholarship offers. He plays for Twinsburg North High School and has starred for MBA Elite this summer. He says Miami is his leader right now but he also has offers from IUPUI, Loyola, Central Michigan, Kent State, Youngstown State, Wright State, Morehead State, and Northeastern. He is solid academically and very interested in Miami's business school. http://miamiohio.scout.com/2/885184.html

* Speaking of Miami, they also have offered Wisconsin forward Chip Rank. Rank visited Miami last weekend and plans on deciding before his first football game August 29th. He also has offers from Loyola, Northern Iowa, UW-Green Bay and UW-Milwuakee. http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/blog.aspx?f=123

* Scroll down to the second entry on that last link to Mark Miller's Courtside blog if you are interested in Loyola (Chicago) recruiting. He lists four players in the class of 2011 with Loyola offers in his top ten Wisconsin player rankings. Milwuakee Hamilton's trio of Darnell Harris, Charles Lee, and Elgin Cook along with Merrill's Paul Jesperson have received scholarship offers from Loyola.

* Scroll down one more entry (I can't figure out the perma-links I'm limited) for some information on local schools involvement with Wisconsin 2010 players as well. St Catherine's 6'2 point guard Steve McWhorter has offers from Eastern Ky, Ball St, Eastern Ill, Indiana St, and others. Reid Koenen, a 6'7 wing forward from the Prarie School also has an Eastern Kentucky offer.

* Kenny Stevenson of Seton Academy (Illinois) committed to UI-Chicago today. Stevenson is a 6'2 shooting guard for First Step in the summers. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page22.html

* Jody Demling twittered that Mason County's Treg Setty has been offered by the University of Southern Illinois.

* Will Triggs of Edwardsville (Illinois) committed to Austin Peay today.
http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/willtriggs.html Triggs is a 6'6 senior to be who averaged 16 and 11 last year.

Commitments, Visits, and School Lists Update: 8/5

6'6 Glenbrook North swingman Alex Dragecevich has had a big July for Full Package and seen his interest list and offers expand quickly. Dragecevich was second team all-state by the Sun Times last year and Chicagohoops has him ranked 12th in the class of 2010 in Illinois. He committed to Coach Mike Brey and joins point guard Eric Atkins in Notre Dame's 2010 recruiting class. Dragecevich is still a shooter first but has worked hard to be a legitimate high major wing and has developed an all around game this summer. It will be a blast seeing how he develops in South Bend and Notre Dame landed a deadly shooter. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/08/05/notre-dame-adds-dragicevich-to-2010-class/ Notre Dame is pursuing several elite targets still in the 2010 class including Ralston Turner, Tobias Harris, Kyrie Irving, and Jerian Grant among others.

Kentucky is expecting 6'7 Long Island wing forward Tobias Harris today on campus according to RumbaughD1 on twitter. Harris is being pursued by many of the top programs in the country including Notre Dame and Syracuse among others. Syracuse just beat out Louisville and Kentucky for 7'0 Florida Rams project Fab Mello. Since he was a bit of a new arrival and a novelty I think a lot of people nationally fawned over Mello excessively. He is talented and is going to be a wonderful pro in four or five years in my opinion but I see no reason to expect anything special out of him during his one or two college years. He was outplayed by younger and less talented kids in July including 2011 Louisville commitment Michael Chandler. If you do your player rankings by who is going to be high in the draft in two years he's your guy but if you're a college basketball fan he probably shouldn't be mentioned with the other five star type of guys in my never humble enough opinion.

Avon, Indiana 2012 big man Austin Burgett received offers from Iowa and Northwestern. He already had an offer on the table from Cincinnati and his recruitment is early but he has interest from Indiana, Purdue, Butler, Louisville, and others. Burgett is already 6'7 and growing and has reliable range to the three point line to go with several post moves and a good handle. He will be a hot commodity this time next year!

Burgett's Spiece Rising Star teammate Kellon Thomas received a Butler offer according to P-hoop.blogspot.com. http://www.p-hoops.blogspot.com/ Kellon is an outstanding point guard who is being pursued by several high major programs as well. He's about 5'9 and has a nice outside shot and gets to the hole at will. He also has the kind of handle and floor vision you hope to get from a point guard. Photo is from the USSSA Nationals last week.

Here's an outstanding rundown of stock raisers and post-July awards for Illinois kids from the Hendrickson Blog in the Sun Times (hoopsreport). http://blogs.suntimes.com/hoopsreport/ He has nice comments on several 2012 Chicago area point guards, the 16U Illinois Wolves, the 17U Rising Stars team, UI recruits Leonard, Robinson, and Abrams as well as the talented 2013 trio of Parker/Hamilton/Foster who he says are not as good as Peter Jok of Des Moines! Good stuff as always from Hendrickson.

Here's a couple of links from chicagohoops. The first talks about Bolingbrook's Antwain Cox and his recent visit to Eastern Illinois. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/acox1.html The second talks about the top uncommitted point guards in Chicago in the 2010 class. Mike McCall, Levonte Dority, Jay Harris, Reggie Smith, Hoopy Jones, and Karl Madison are the ones focused in on. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/availbackcourt.html Several of these guys are going to high majors and will be among the "how did they get away" file from local schools.

Here's an Illinois Prep Bullseye link with a ton of nuggets. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page33.html They mention Evansville making Hayden Hoerdemann top priority, Peoria Irish 17U Jeff Johnson possibly favoring Eastern Kentucky, Walter Lemon from Chicago Fenger being pursued by Wright State, and Sean McGonagill being pursued by several programs. Also notice Hollis Hill and Aaron Williams drawing quite a crowd of head coaches from Bradley, Chicago State, Illinois State, Murray State and other schools after decommitting from UW Milwuakee. James Siakem was being watched by several schools including Notre Dame and Illinois while Threloff and Revonte Rice drew a big crowd including Evansville, Illinois State, Indiana State, and several others.

August Commitments and Recruting Updates:

Hillcrest star shooting guard Eric Gaines committed to Gino Ford's Kent State program. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/gainesksu.html The Good Mongrel had some kind words to say about his game from the Hoosier Shootout and I believe this is a steal for the Golden Flashes. Gaines is a long athletic 6'4 wing player who can drive and plays hard on defense and is one of the most underrated kids in Illinois in my opinion.

Chicago Hoops' Brian Stinnette also has a trove of recruiting nuggets in this article http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/brianstinnette600.html Alex Dragecevich is visiting Notre Dame on Monday the 3rd. Stinnette says Brey was front and center for Dragecevich's games at the Adidas Super 64 and the End of Summer Classic and that Travis Ford flew in special to see him in the End of Summer Classic. He also mentions 2010 recruit Patrick Miller of Old Gold picking up a Tennessee State offer, updates the Mike McCall recruitment as Indiana State and St Louis head coaches watched him at Merrillville for the End of Summer Classic as well as California and Illinois State coaches and updates Nevada's pursuit of Ravonte Rice and other players.

Austin Etherington committed to Indiana University today. He is a 6'6 wing forward known for his excellent shooting stroke and big time leaping ability. He has been up and down some this summer in AAU playing with a new squad (Indiana Elite Team Indiana) and coming off micro-fracture surgery. Etherington is ranked #57 on scout.com. Fox Sports Jeff Goodman likes Etherington's game. http://community.foxsports.com/goodmanonfox/blog/2009/08/03/north_carolina_iu_bama_all_snag_commitments

While we're linking up Chicagohoops we can't leave out the link to their update on 2012 Rockford Auburn point guard Fred Van Vleet who is being recruited by Depaul and Illinois at the End of Season Showdown where the 5'11 point guard was with Prymetime. Also included is an update on 6'4 Austin Angel who plays for Rockford Boylon and is being recruited by Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/rockford.html

Switching rust belt states from Illinois to Ohio, ESPN's Paul Biancardi has some nice words about several players for the All Ohio Red program which dominated the summer circuit this year at the 17U level and had strong finishes with the younger kids too. Biancardi also has a shoutout to Chad Jackson from Scott County, Kentucky who has impressed the humble Mongrel on more than one occasion. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4373610

Last week I mentioned the play of the NEO Ballers at the USSSA Nationals. They were outstanding and ended up winning the Division 2 bracket in the 16U age group. A Michigan State assistant was on hand to watch 6'7 athletic big man Anton Grady. Grady blocked a lot of shots and really seemed to get into the defensive dominance the Ballers were applying to the Illinois Predators when I was watching. Grady led Cleveland Central Catholic high school to the D3 state championship (Plain Dealer photo above from championship victory) and has excellent length and defensive presence. He's being recruited by Ohio State, Michigan State, Akron, Xavier, Ohio, and other fine programs. I'd read an article on Bucknuts about him after the Adidas Takes Five (unfortunately link is down) and he was playing with Friends for Life in Cincinnati. It was my first look at the NEO Ballers and I messed up a couple of the roster names on the blog post the other day but now I have it right. The kid I suspected was drawing Michigan State interest initially is named Jazel Garrett. He is a 6'0 combo guard from Akron Buchtel HS with crazy athleticism and excellent balance. He was all over the passing lanes and went in for the kill. Right now he's being recruited by Akron, Kent State, Wright State, IPFW, and Morehead State among others. I look forward to seeing these guys play again, it was my first look at them and they outclassed their opponents enough that I need to see them play some more but I was extremely impressed with my first viewing. The Lutheran East backcourt duo of Brian Burdine and Marques Coleman also impressed.

Illinois Wolves, All Ohio Red End Strong

* The 16U Illinois Wolves won the 17U division at the End of Summer Classic in Merrillville. Nana Egwu and Chasson Randle were co-MVP's. The Wolves had to pull a rabit out of their hat to defeat a strong Terone Johnson game for Eric Gordon All Stars 17U team and were down six with a minute left but some Jacob Williams and Chasson Randle heroics clinched it for them. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/endseason10.html


* The 16U title was won by the Queen City Prophets featuring Xavier, Indiana, Ohio State, and Cincinnati target Aaron Thomas, seen here in a Courier Journal picture. The Prophets were coming off a tournament win in Mississippi last week according to the link. 15U was won by Prymetime as Rockville's Jacob Van Vleet was impressive. They beat the Eric Gordon Central Stars 15U in the semi-finals and then beat the Meanstreets 14U playing up a year (Alex Foster). The 14U tournament was won by another Meanstreets 14U team, the Wilbur squad who defeated Mac Irvin Fire. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/endseason11.html

* All Ohio Red won the 15U, 16U, and 17U division at the Orlando Nationals. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/eventreports/allohioredwin16unationals Elijah Macon, Traevon Jackson, Trey Burke, and Raphael Carter had excellent performances for the 16U squad according to the link. 17U defeated New York Gauchos for the championship sweep.

* The 17U All Ohio Red did beat an impressive Old Gold squad from Illinois in the round of 16 at nationals. This Illinois Prep Bullseye story discusses the Old Gold, RisingStars, and Illinois Kings squads who had a nice showing in Orlando. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page26.html

* The MVP of the state tournament in Kentucky has received an offer from Central Michigan. 2010 athletic 6'5 wing Ricardo Johnson has offers from Central Michigan, Bradley, Ohio, and Marshall along with interest from several high major schools. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/eventreports/ricardojohnsonpickingupoffers

* Michigan and Kentucky made the final seven for Casey Prather of the Nashville Celtics. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/08/uk-on-prathers-final-list.html

* Courtside blog has updates on a few Wisconsin kids who are being recruited by schools of note. Buzz Williams and a Wisconsin assistant took in a Wisconsin Playground Warrior game with JP Tokoto. Wisconsin and Iowa also had an assistant on hand for a Paul Jesperson game. Valparaiso is among the schools involved with Wisconsin Force 6'8 forward Robert Gilchrist. Josh Cameron is being recruited by UIC, SIU-Edwardsville, and Ball State.
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