Lots of recruiting info on eve of signing day.

I'll try to link some things from twitter searches and post on signing day as I'll be keeping a close eye on updates. I'll also try to find some free links tomorrow to cover updates. Meanwhile, here are a few commitments and hubub to keep you warm.

* Jody Demling of the Louisville Courier Journal had an outstanding recruiting chat Tuesday night. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/blog.html

* Duje Dukan has committed to Wisconsin. He's an outstanding shooter with good size at 6'8, he went to the right place Bo loves big forwards who can shoot the ball. Photo at the right is from the Deerfield Pioneer, found it online at pioneerlocal.com. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page24.html

* Cameron Harvey (Mongreltopia 2012 #34) from St Joseph's (Illinois) has committed to the Wyoming Cowboys and plans on majoring in engineering. He plays summer for Indiana Elite. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page7.html

* SIU-Edwardsville just landed 6'9 Alex Brown from Herrin HS (Illinois) who played summer for the Illinois Bears. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/alexbrownsiue.html

* Eastern Illinois just landed a commitment from Issac Smith from Leo (Chicago). Smith is a 6'2 shooting guard who played this summer with Duje Dukan for Chicago Elite. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/isaacsmith.html

* Highmajorscoop.com put out a spreadsheet with the combine results on the kids at their top 100 camp. It is nice to see real measurements, when I read recruiting articles everyone had a 40 inch vertical and you learn after a while to just take an inch off every reported height and figure most of the time you should take two. Now we know Sullinger is 6'8.5 and 264 pounds with a solid vertical leap for such a big strong kid. Kaufman is 6'2 with a 34 inch vertical. http://highmajorscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/top-100-combine-results_xlsx.pdf

* Here's a list of the kids who are going D1 in basketball from Ohio in the 2010 class. Ohio might have the strongest crop of talent in the country in the 2010 class. http://www.jjhuddle.com/news/articles/2009/11/11/who-is-headed-where-2009-2010-basketball-recruiting

* Mark Miller's Courtside blog has a similar update on the 2010 D1 kids from Wisconsin. Among the 14 kids mentioned are Flavien Davis who is going to Loyola (Chicago) and Steve McWhorter who is committed to Indiana State. http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/blog.aspx?f=123

* Cory Stanton from Springfield, Tennessee has joined Coach Brad Brownell's 2010 recruiting class at Wright State. Cole Darling, AJ Pacher, Kegan Clark, and Mark Vest are the other members of the class. http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/wrightstatesports/entries/2009/11/08/another_recruit_for_the_raider.html

September Visits, Commitments, Updates...

The summer is winding down, the pig skin is being dusted off, and bikinis are still in fashion. That's right folks, September is in full force. Recruiting visits are happening all over the country, and most of the time schools try to get their top priorities on campus first so expect commitments to pick up a little starting next week. Last week one of the best uncommitted players in Ohio pulled the trigger for Xavier. Griffin McKenzie had his list down to four schools and found his future home in his own back yard. The Cincinnati star is all of 6'9 and has good reach. I haven't seen much of him since May when he was still kicking the rust off from a long recovery from a back injury so I don't have a real good feel for how good he is. When I saw him he appeared a bit mechanical but showed a nice outside shot. He had strong interest from Ohio State, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and several other high major programs.

Meanwhile a pair of Baltimore area stars are visiting high major campuses near you. 2010 star guard Jerrian Grant is visiting Mike Brey and Notre Dame this weekend, and 6'4 athlete supreme Victor Oladipo is on Indiana's campus. Its thought that Notre Dame will also have an excellent shot at both players as Oladipo has a visit scheduled for Notre Dame as well. Indiana and Notre Dame are also both expecting visits from Alabama's Ralston Turner this fall, another fine wing in the 2010 class.

The good Mongrel has been puting off a series of posts in response to emails on who is the best player in each state not to show up on the national top 100 lists and Kentucky is one of the primary culprits. 2010 stars Ricardo Johnson, Josh Sewell, and Ge'lawn Guyn are all outstanding players that in the opinion of the impressed Mongrel would be nice additions for any program in the country. Guyn ended up at Charlotte and Sewell with the Miami Redhawks but Johnson is out doing visits right now. Johnson is an outstanding athlete and has good size and strength for a guard as well. He's about 6'4 and can really defend. Johnson's first really strong offer came from Jim Les' Bradley program who has been on him from the beginning and he mentions some of the appeals of Bradley in this player bio put out by Hoopsreport.com. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/playerdiaries/ricardosdiary

According to the Louisville Courier Journal reporter Jody Demling, Aaron Thomas has picked up an offer from Indiana. Thomas is a 6'4 wing in the 2011 class from Cincinnati who drew a lot of high major attention for the Queen City Prophets in July. Demling's blog is linked on the side-bar.

Another Indiana prospect is heading to prep school. Its an epidemic which is wiping out the state's talent base in 2010. Dominique Fergeson and Justin Martin are getting all the attention, and for good reason they are outstanding high major star prospects. But Indianapolis Northwest's Ronald Ross will be joining Martin at Mountain State Academy. http://blogs.indystar.com/recruitingcentral/2009/09/ross-to-prep-sc.html Ross has an offer from Ohio. In addition to the three Indianapolis stars, Enique Mason and Xavier Jones from the SYF Players organization will be leaving the state for prep school. Jones is a very well known prospect from Gary who has offers to several strong mid-majors and some high majors as well. Mason might be a name people aren't as familiar with but that won't be the case too long. Right now he's probably projected as a lower D1 player, but the kid is very strong and coordinated and at 6'10 you just don't see many bodies out there like his. If you got to see Maurice Walker this summer from Team Breakdown (Canada) Mason looks like he's on track to be that kind of player. He needs to get a little more aggressive but he works hard on defense, uses his body against his opponent, has good hands, and can get the ball in the hoop when he tries and he has the size you can't teach. Walker is also in the 2010 class but I'm pretty sure he's 2-3 years older than Mason iirc. Big guys have the famous light that comes on and Mason is a kid who can go from nowhere to somewhere pretty quick if that happens, he's got all the parts lined up waiting for the big game to happen. I hope the move to Ohio treats him well.

Chicago area shooting forward Duje Dukan has an offer from Miami to add to his collection. Check out this free story on his visit to see the Redhawks campus. http://miamiohio.scout.com/2/894589.html Dukan is a 6'8 forward with a smooth shooting stroke and has other offers from Oregon State, New Mexico, and several mid-major programs.

Kentucky is going to host 6'8 Portland, Oregon forward Terrance Jones on September 22nd according to Zagsblog.com. http://www.zagsblog.net/

The absent-minded Mongrel missed this update on Central Michigan recruiting this year by MILive.com. http://blog.mlive.com/highschoolbasketball/ In addition to Coach Zeigler's son Trey, Central Michigan is in the running for Cole Darling, Colin Voss, Devin Long, Nate VanArendonk, and Maurice Jones.

2011 Muncie, Indiana star Jeremiah Davis is hearing from the locals how badly they want to see him wearing an Indiana uniform. Check out this interview from the Bloomington Herald Times on Davis. http://blogs.heraldtimesonline.com/iusp/?p=4325 When Davis first came to the good Mongrel's attention he was getting high major offers from the best programs in the country as an 8th and soon to be 9th grader. Much like fellow 2011 point guard star Marquis Teague, his teams have not performed as well as you'd hope for such an outstanding talent and smart kid at point to produce. Davis had a habit of taking too many shots and despite having all the right tools and being a good kid, he started out with a bit of a reputation for a free lancer. This summer he switched AAU teams and really handled the point well in July and regained the attention of some national scouts and more high major programs. Its unclear where he'll end up imo, I'm not real convinced the Indiana hype is going to pan out. Schools with huge fan bases like Indiana or Kentucky tend to drum up unrealistic expectations which include landing every recruit who talks them up, but many kids like to talk them up just to get their names out there. We'll see though, if Davis continues to mature on the court he's got the overall game and athleticism to continue his track to McDonald's All American status so he'd be a good get for any program who can keep him focused on running the team. Davis is pictured above from an IDS photo. I've seen him several times and love his ability on both sides of the ball, it'll be fun to see how good he can be if he keeps playing team ball.

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.

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.

Illinois Wolves Champs in KC, Other Tourney Updates

Hoops City Classic Completed

* The Illinois Wolves 16U squad came away from the Hoops City Classic as champions. They are one of the most talented squads in the age group nationally. Purdue, Illinois, and Wisconsin are among the many schools pursuing Chasson Randle and Nana Egwu who both made the all tourney team. Rock Island point guard Chasson Randle was MVP. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page11.html Photo is from QC Times article.

* Spiece Mokan out of Kansas City won the 15U division.

Adidas Super 64 (Vegas):

* The D1E Derek Rose Elite 17U squad is the only team from the Mongrel's radius (Ky, In, Il, Oh, MI) still active in the gold bracket. They play the Compton Magic Saturday evening to make the semi-finals.

* Indiana Elite/Team Indiana made it to the quarter-finals on the backs of a 24 point effort by Austin Etherington to beat DC Triple Assault per Mike Pegram twitters. They then beat 43 Hoops (Carr) by 1 to make the semi-finals.

* The above link from Illinois Prep Bullseye also mentions Chicago Elite sharp shooter Duje Dukan of Chicago Elite getting an offer from Loyola. Chicago Elite lost

* The Derek Smith All Stars 16U squad is in the semi-finals after beating the Michigan Mustangs. They'll meet the Southern Kings Gold squad for a chance to play in the championship at 1:00 Vegas time.

* Indiana Elite/Team Indiana 15U lost in the semi-finals against the Atlanta Celtics. Peter Jurkin had 15 points in an afternoon victory.

* Ohio Basketball Club 15U lost to Team Philly for a right to play in the semi-finals of the same bracket.

* The Ville 14U squad is playing for the championship of the 14U bracket in the morning. The Ville has Shelby County incoming freshman super star Daryl Hicks and got 25 out of Pruitt in a double overtime victory against Dream Vision earlier on Saturday.

Super Showcase (Orlando):

* Also from above Illinois Prep Bullseye link the 17U Illinois Warriors went 3-0 in pool play at the Super Showcase in Orlando. The Illinois Kings also went 2-1 in pool play and won their pool in a tie breaker.

* Rising Stars Gold won their pool and then stunned All Ohio Red in the first round of bracket play Saturday evening to eliminate Sullinger and company. I might have spoken too soon on the elimination thing, this ESPN link kind of suggests All Ohio Red has a golden parachute in this one because of the tv deal (ESPN will broadcast several games on Sunday from 5-9). I'm not sure if the writer was being presumptuous that All Ohio Red would make it or if they are carved into the schedule no matter what. http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/news/story?page=risegames/aaupreviews/4355375

Reebok Summer Championships:

* ESPN had some nice things to say about Ray McCallum Jr and Walter Pitchford from the Reebok Create and Finish. The Create and Finish Classic is just a mutated Super Pool type of arrangement and all the clubs are reseeded in the larger tournament afterward. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4355793

* Despite having a useful web site, don't ask me to explain all the strange brackets that don't fit together in the Reebok tournament. Grand Rapids Storm is still alive (Anderson) and if they win Saturday Evening against Belmont Shores the Storm will be playing for the championship of the "A" bracket in the morning for a chance to play against another bracket champion for the "A" division championship.

Vision Sports Main Event (Vegas):

* The Main Event has been the hardest to track online as their web page is a mess, but Hugh Kellenberger of the Bloomington Herald Times has twittered that the Bloomington South High School Panthers have made it to the semi-finals in the 17U champions bracket (final 4). The Panthers are coming off an undefeated season and are led by 2010 Eric Fromm (Butler commit), 2011 Dee Davis (Xavier commit), 2011 Matt Carlino (Indiana commit), 2011 Spencer Turner, and 2012 TJ Bell who are also being pursued by high majors. Here's an update from Thursday morning, Demling did a nice story on them. http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090725/SPORTS11/907250351/It+s+been+viva++Las+Vegas+for+Bloomington+South+basketball+team

* Mac Irvin Fire went 2-1 in pool play after loss to Seattle Rotary. The Fire have other squads playing on the "Center Stage" event which I'm currently wrapping my head around and will try to find information on it in the morning. This Chicagohoops link has some breakdowns of which of the 2 17U and 1 16U squads have whom on their teams. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/firevegas.html

* Also, the thorough Mongrel is trying to keep an update on which coach is watching who and where from free sources only (sorry no scout, rivals, hoopmasters stuff on this one). Email me if you saw somebody somewhere and Il'l update it. Its an earlier post that I keep editing.
http://hoopsmongrel.blogspot.com/2009/07/who-is-your-school-watching.html

Illinois Prospects: New Offers andRecruiting Buzz Link-O-Rama

Bowling Green has extended an offer to 6'8 2010 forward Chris Oliver. Oliver played recently for Meanstreets in a tournament but is normally with First Step. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page45.html I posted a link yesterday confirming an Akron offer for Oliver as well.

The above link also mentions Jacob Williams getting an offer from Jim Les' Bradley Braves.

According to Chicagohoops, Dekalb's Jordan Threloff received new offers from Ball State and Elon to add to his collection (Southern Illinois, Drake, Illinois State, Depaul, etc) and has drawn interest this July from Minnesota. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/jthreloff1.html This photo is from the Chronicle's Eric Sunberg.

Duje Dukan keeps getting rave reviews. He plays for Full Package Elite and is one of the best shooters in the country. The Sun-Times' Hendrickson blog says he raised his stock more than anyone else in Chicago this July. Chicago media tend to have a few favorites that get overlooked for other guys by national scouts. Dre Henley, Mike McCall, and Dukan are three guys that immediately come to mind who I consistently see treated like big time prospects by local media who have so much more exposure, but are usually overlooked by national scouts. This link to the City/Suburban Hoops Report mentions Dukan as well as other stock risers from recent AAU play including Illinois Kings standouts Sean McGonagill and Justin Phipps as well as 2011's Abdul Nader from Maine East, 2012's Nate Brooks (Whitney Young), Charles Harris of Lake Forest, and Malcolm Hill-Brey who Hendrickson says might have the best handle in the state. 2013 Whitney Young star Tommy "Big Ham" Hamilton. http://blogs.suntimes.com/hoopsreport/

On the other hand Mike Shaw and Wayne Blackshear and some of the Mac Irvin Fire guys get the opposite treatment. Here's a quote from Clark Francis and a link to where I found it. I went ahead and provided a link because I haven't found it elsewhere (but have no reason to doubt it and no editor who gets nervous about my reputation). "We're still trying to figure what's happened to 6'8 Jr Mike Shaw from Chicago (De La Salle) IL, who had only two points and three rebounds in a game and was schooled by many less talented players and 6'5 Jr Wayne Blackshear from Chicago (Morgan Park) IL, didn't even play in today's games? Remember, we're talking about two of the top 10-ranked juniors in the nation. And even worse than the undisciplined and lethargic way the Mac Irvin Fire has been playing lately is the fact that this was the only team in the tournament that didn't have a roster in the book. This isn't the Chicago Public League, where they don't have programs or rosters. It's the premier NIKE tournament of the entire year and it's kind of hard for your players to get exposure when nobody can identify them. We asked the organizers why no roster for the Fire and were told that is business as usual for these guys they never meet deadlines or submit the paperwork. The only one's the are hurting are the other player's on the team who need the exposure. " The link is to a Chicagohoops forum where the Fire are critiqued pretty harshly. It has some really incisive comments, but please keep in mind it is a message board thread where the title invites people who typically already had their mind made up to come there to criticize the Fire and their perceived under-performance this year at the 17U level. Another thread on the same forum raves about the same Mac Irvin Fire and has equally convincing praise for the talented and exciting squad from its considerable population of admirers. http://forums.chicagohoops.com/viewtopic.php?t=20769

Sometimes all a kid needs is time to turn it on, the scouts know that and anticipate it and get used to looking for kids who have a certain athleticism that is sought by the coaches they talk to. But lots of times the kids who underperformed at 16 are underperforming at 22. As Coach Bill Parcels is fond of saying, "If they don't bite as pups, they usually don't bite at all." That's where being a local media member who sees the prospects a lot more and is aware of what they look like day in and day out and how hard they work and how much pride they have in their performances, etc can have a big advantage over the national guys who are more in tune with athletic potential and you see a divide open between local and national perspective on prospects. Both sides of the coin can be important and often come together so its not an either-or situation usually, just part of the picture. And in the end, its all up to these kids. The ones getting D1 scholarship offers are almost all good enough to do well. They have to work hard and get it done.