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.

July 17 Recruiting Buzz aau re-shuffling for Vegas (Fergeson, Hopkins)

The Eric Gordon All-Stars are coming off their first tournament title at the Best of the Midwest Tournament. Indianapolis North Central and Purdue bound 6'2 shooting guard Terone Johnson was MVP of the tournament and continues to display a toughness and consistency that spells great things for Matt Painter. But Johnson is not the only star on this club.

6'10 Cincinnati Moeller forward Griffin McKenzie is fully recovered from his back injury and drawing offers left and right. I posted a link on his recruiting a couple of days ago, but since then the offers keep rolling in. Ohio State has offered and Indiana's head coach Tom Crean was at two of McKenzie's games at Best of the Midwest so don't be surprised if the offers keep rolling in for McKenzie. Peegs.com's Matt Weaver spoke with him on Thursday and he said he now has offers from Xavier, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Tennessee, and Providence. http://indiana.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=965279 The article is a premium article from the excellent Indiana rivals site run by Mike Pegram. Yesterday Moeller HS coach Carl Kremer told the Cincinnati Enquirer that McKenzie now has offers from Ohio State and Vanderbilt as well. We'll be watching to see where McKenzie visits before the Eric Gordon All Stars hit Vegas later in the month.

And when they do hit vegas, they will have a significant new addition. Indianapolis Manual's Crishawn Hopkins has been playing with the Bloomington Blaze but will be playing for the Eric Gordon All Stars in Vegas. Hopkins will be a huge addition for them. He is a 6'1 skinny point guard who can jump out of the gym. I saw the Blaze Select get waxed by Atlanta All Stars a couple of weeks ago and Hopkins was the best player on the floor and scored about 25 of his teams 32 points. Hopkins also is an impressive shooter with a nice three point shot. I haven't had the chance to see him play on a team where you'd want him setting up his teammates a great deal but he has a good handle and if he has the kind of feel for the team's offense that you want out of a point its hard to see how Hopkins won't wind up playing for a high major program. He already has good offers including Miami (Oh) and interest from Virginia, Indiana, and Arizona among others. The Eric Gordon All Stars will give him that opportunity for both exposure and to show how well he can play point when he isn't the only high level player on his squad. Johnson is a strong off guard with range and McKenzie and Indianapolis Howe forward Jordan Manual are big kids who can stroke the three. If Hopkins is a point guard he should have plenty of shooters to kick the ball out to. I know he can drive, dunk, and shoot. The Mongrel will be at the edge of his seat to see if Hopkins leaves Vegas with some new attention. He's got his grades back on track and believes he will qualify as a freshman if he has a good year in the classroom. And yes, he can dunk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuhoC8C5LEw

The SYF Players will be losing Dominique Fergeson for a while at least (indystar photo of Fergeson trying to swat the Juice). http://twitter.com/Dferg23 He's going to be playing for Team Detroit in Vegas next week. SYF had a nice showing in the NY2LA Summer Jam last week. 17U Lafayette Jeff star Jesse Berry is committed to Dayton and he joins an already loaded back court with mid-major or better prospects Gary point guard Xavier Jones, East Chicago Central's Michael Harris, and Indianapolis combo guard Andre Hampton who really impressed me in May. The big kids for SYF are going to play D1 ball too. Jake Kitchell is a 6'9 forward who has offers from Oregon State and California and is being tracked by several Big Ten schools including Iowa, Minnesota, and Indiana where he attended an elite camp in June. He is a very prolific scorer and one of Indiana's leading rebounders and led the state in blocked shots. For SYF he takes a vocal leadership role and does the dirty work. It will be fun to see where he ends up. Enique Mason from Brownsburg is a 6'9 kid with a very strong developed body ready for trench warfare in college. He looked vastly improved this spring as well and really got after it on the boards and showed good hands finishing inside. With his size and coordination I expect to start hearing soon about some D1 schools knocking on his door, he should have a breakout year for Brownsburg.

But the big ticket for SYF's 17U squad this year has been Dominique Fergeson. Fergeson is a top 20 ranked prospect nationally and is being pursued by Kentucky, Arizona, Indiana, UCLA, and a virtual who is who in the college basketball world. Persistent rumors about his transferring have been brushed off as ridiculous all year by Fergeson and his father but he finally confirmed what all the Indiana coaches I talk to have been saying for a while. Fergeson will be leaving Lawrence North High School to attend prestigious Hargrave Military Academy in Massachusetts. Naturally his high school coach Jack Keefer is irate about this news. He says (publicly and yes Fergeson is a minor) Fergeson is not on track to qualify and is being used by Dye and his SYF program. http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/07/17/jack-keefer-sounds-off-on-dominique-ferguson/ This Inside the Hall article sums up some of my feelings about hearing Lawrence North's Jack Keefer sound off on Fergeson (originally a Franklin Central player) transferring away from Lawrence North on radio shows. I do not have the pleasure of knowing the coaches from SYF or Keefer himself so I will try to assume everyone has a good point here, but it is a shocker to hear a high school coach going after a player publicly like this, especially one he was getting criticized for recruiting from Franklin Central just a short while ago. And keep in mind that 09 Lawrence North big man Jeff Robinson did not get accepted into Purdue after staying eligible for Coach Keefer and playing and knowing ahead of time what he needed to get done in the class room. And 2010 Justin Martin is transferring away and like Fergeson is said to be in dire academic shape and in need of stronger academic structure to get ready to be accepted to college. And remember that 2010 6'10 center Jan Maehlen is a highly touted Lawrence North big man who plays for Dye's SYF program and is also transferring away from Lawrence North.

In other words, a pattern is forming for Lawrence North that will become downright ugly if 2011 prospects Michael Chandler and Ryan Taylor play ball all year for Lawrence North but end up not having the grades they need for college. Lets hope for a happy ending all around. Fergeson, Martin, and Maehlen can have good years and get into the schools they want to attend now that they chose stronger academic institutions (at least in Hargrave's case) that have a budget and expectations to monitor and pressure the kids into getting it done in the classroom. Hopefully Robinson fits in as well at Xavier as he thought he would at Purdue. And hopefully Chandler and Taylor lead Lawrence North to a huge season for the Wildcats and get it done in the class room vindicating Keefer's "addition by subtraction" stab. Meanwhile the Mongrel will keep an eye on the relationship between the powerful SYF Players program and Indianapolis school coaches and pass on what is fit to e-print.