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.

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.

Super Showcase under way, other recruiting buzz 7/21

I'll be monitoring twitter and combing a few online resources during the next week so check Hoopsmongrel for updates. Grassroots TV and Wazoosports are two ways to watch some Vegas AAU action if you are desperate. I won't go live until End of Summer Classic next week so I'll try to find different angles to cover as it goes on and get back to work on updating the coach tracker post from last week. I have a lot more in my notes for that and haven't gotten to it beyond what I originally posted but promise to warm that puppy back up with non-premium information, in fact I'll probably stop procrastinating tomorrow. vbg

Summer Showcase (Orlando):

The geeky Mongrel will be Twitter mining for AAU updates warms up today with Team Pride 15U (Ken Kaminski and others) defeating Birmingham Storm! 15U action underway and the rest starts Wednesday, I am fired up!!

Other early tweets from the event: Charlotte Storm 15U beat Tidewater. Martin Brothers 15U Jerel Moore impressing in his opening pool game. Hot 2012 prospect Marcus Paige is also impressing in that game according to a Kansas writer who is doing a few updates.


Other Recruiting Notes:

Usually I am all over the Demling blog but I missed a couple of good entries from the last few days on kids of note. Donovan Gibbs from Iriquois HS in Louisville is having a great summer for Shining Stars Sports. He is 6'6 and has offers from IUPUI, Bellarmine, and Easter Kentucky. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/07/update-donovan-gibbs.html

Chicagohoops is saying Chicago media sweetheart Mike McCall of Foreman has picked up an offer from Drake. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/mccall5.html Photo is from cicbasketball.com. He plays school ball for Foreman alongside the talented Marquette and Indiana target Levonte Dority.

NWI Times confirms UCLA and Arizona offers for SYF Players 16U super athlete Branden Dawson from Gary. He already had offers from Purdue, Indiana, Minnesota, and Georgetown. Dawson is incredibly talented but is about 6'5 and will need to sharpen up the handle quite a bit or speed up his improving jump shot a little to be able to dominate when he gets to the next level. He is a gifted rebounder and a treat to watch. He plays with some talented teammates in Mitch McGary and Markus Crider but in May he stood head and shoulders above them. He was the show. UCLA had coaches in Milwuakee for the NY2LA Summer Jam to watch him and he made his way out to UCLA for an elite camp earlier this summer so the offer is not a big surprise. He has a lot of Purdue people around him and they are the early favorite from most accounts so it'll be interesting to see how his recruitment shakes out if Ben Howland starts showing up at SYF games. http://www.post-trib.com/sports/highschools/1675885,bkb-dawson-0721.highschool

NBE blog has a reveiw on Suttons Bay, Michigan star Dwann Anderson and also says Kentucky, Xavier, Marquette, and Cincinnati are among the schools in the running for NY Gaucho Shane Southwell. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/07/21/lookback-at-hoop-group-elite-camp/

Marquette, Indiana, and Xavier have offered Virginia wing Justin Coleman.
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/tracker/school?schoolId=120&page=briefingroom&season=2010&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fncb%2frecruiting%2ftracker%2fschool%3fschoolId%3d120%26page%3dbriefingroom%26season%3d2010 Apologize for the wacky link, it goes to the espn "on the trail" feature so if you aren't clicking near the time I linked it you might have to scroll down a little. He is the guy who went from unranked to five star with a couple of recruiting services after having a huge top 100 NBA camp a few weeks ago.

July 10 AAU roundup and link-o-rama

Detroit Finny's Isiah Sykes and Ohio State commitment Lenzelle Smith made the all-star team at the Reebok All-American camp. Some Kentucky, Louisville, Indiana, and Notre Dame targets were also selected including Stacey Poole, LaQuinton Ross, Fuquan Edwin, Joe Jackson, Kyle Anderson, and Sterling Gibbs. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/07/11/friday-open-evaluation-period-notebook-part-ii/ Part one of their evaluation has more on some east coast prospects at Reebok and some notes on Chicago Summer Classic including liking 2011 James Siakhem for Illinois Titans. They also spoke with Indianapolis Howe's 6'8 forward Jordan Manual who is listing a top 3 of Wright State, Saint Josephs, and Providence. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/07/10/friday-open-evaluation-period-notebook-part-i/ The summer classic is on day 3 right now and here is a link to updated playoff schedules. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/sclassic6.html

All-Iowa Attack Red won the 17U division of the NY2LA Invitational in Milwaukee and 2011 star Donivine Stewart was playing up a grade and still won co-MVP honors with teammate Travon Wright. http://www.ny2lasports.com/NextLevelDay4recap.htm Chris Oliver, Jesse Berry, Alex Foster, and other players of note are featured. Milwaukee's own Vander Blue scored 33 in the loss.

Here is a link to some wonderful player profiles from the event by Illinois Prep Bullseye. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page42.html They profile Mike McCall who strangely enough is consistently ranked among the top handful of players in Chicago by all local media but seems to be way below that level by all the national guys. They also take a look at Donivine Stewart and several other players from Illinois including Keith Carter and Aaron Simpson (2013) who were watched closely by Purdue and Illinois at the event.

On July 12 the Summer Jam in Milwaukee will host elite talent from around the country including Vander Blue, Jalen Kendrick, Ray McCallum Jr, Moses Morgan, Cameron Wright, Flavien Davis, John Gasser, Dominique Fergeson, Trey Zeigler, Branden Dawson, Levonte Dority, Jake Kitchell, Quevyn Winters, Chason Randle, and Dante Williams. This Wisnet preview by Mark Miller has player rankings for many of the invitees and brief descriptions. http://www.wishoops.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/message.aspx?f=123&id=1043188

Dylan Kaufman (2012) of Akron recently visited Miami and received a scholarship offer. Kaufman also visited Ohio State and drew coaches from North Carolina, Akron, and Indiana's Tom Crean at the Adidas Take Five. http://www.miamihawktalk.com/home/recruits/player/10351/

Port Washington, Wisconsin shooting guard John Gasser has had a huge summer so far this year and according to a couple of separate Mark Miller blurbs he is being tracked closely by Wisconsin and Virginia at the Kentucky Hoopfest.

NY2LA Invitational Tournament Update and Reebok Day One

NY2LA

Meanstreets out of Chicago beat the Iowa Mavericks to make it to the 17U semis in Milwaukee.

Indiana State and Butler target Josh Oglesby led the Iowa Barnstormers 16U program to a big win to make it to the semi-finals Thursday morning against Playground Elite.

The Hendrickson Blog in the Sun-Times claims Illinois has offered Peter Jok who is considered to be the #1 player in the country in 2013. He is a 6'4 guard from Sudan that lives in Iowa. Coaches from all over the country watched he and Meanstreets 2013 Alex Foster who is also considered a top 10 player in that class. http://blogs.suntimes.com/hoopsreport/2009/07/changing_culture_targets_2013.html 2012 Keith Carter and Aaron Simpson for Team NLP were good as were Mike McCall and several other prospects of note.


Reebok All-American Camp

Bruce Weber was on hand to watch Illinois Wolves Nana Egwu and St Patrick's Jacob Williams in Philly. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page15.html The duo of 2010 Travis Herron and 2011 Phillip Greene who are high school teammates at Fenger got the Bullseye's nod as top performers of the day.

NBE blog as might be expected is on top of this Philly based event. Their day 2 report includes reports on Indiana and Kentucky target Joe Jackson, Indiana, Cincinnati, and Xavier target Victor Olapido, Indiana and Depaul target Sterling Gibbs, and Depaul target Derick Randall. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/07/09/reebok-all-americam-camp-update-ii/

And don't forget the day one report with updates on Notre Dame target John Johnson, Michigan, and Michigan State target and Detroit Finny prospect Isiah Sykes as well as Jacksonville's Stacey Poole who after a great NBA top 100 camp has shown up on the radar of Louisville and Kentucky along with previous interest from Indiana. http://w3.nbebasketball.com/2009/07/08/reebok-all-american-camp-update-i/

Twitter Tuesday Summer League Tracker

Bittersweet technology simultaneously confounds and tempts the simple Mongrel and nowhere is the landscape quite so vague, yet rewarding as the Twitter fields. Twittatory can be confusing and often searches turn up more than one fish the Mongrel wishes he could throw back. But some good ball is being played, and gettin twitty wit' it is the only way the good Mongrel can come to terms.

GoldandBlack.com has a twitter page the Mongrel has been following for a while now. Purdue has hosted five team camps and several juicy droplets of update mana have flowed from their free twitter page http://twitter.com/GoldandBlackcom. Several links reveal even more detail, but the team camps at Purdue this June have included Whitko winning the small school tournament behind star junior Zach Van DeWater and coach's son Logan Irwin. Irwin is a 5'9 sophomore to be and is one of Indiana's top scoring returning sophomores. Van DeWater is a 6'5 athletic kid with good driving ability and quickness. Indianapolis Pike won Purdue's most recent team camp behind a strong effort from Khristian Smith who has an offer from IUPUI and strong interest other D1 schools including Brad Brownell's Wright State program and Chris Lowery's Southern Illinois machine. Recent Purdue 2010 commitment Donnie Hale from New Albany was up and down, but had a good game against elite 2011 forward Branden Dawson. Dawson is one of the best athletes in the class and has a little bit of a jump shot but will need to keep developing some wing skills or grow into power forward to keep his lofty position in the class of 2011. His upside is unlimited and he simply outclasses good athletes because he's on another level. Rock Island, Illinois star Chason Randle just made it back from the USA 16U team playing somewhere down where snakes get 50 feet long and they make gas out of sugar in time for some good performances as well.

Forgive the Mongrel some map-bending, but excellent and frequent updates of the (deep breath) Hoop Group Metro Summer Showcase provided by NorthStarBball at http://twitter.com/NorthstarBball deserves a special mention. Kids today. Tisk, tisk, tisk. Ok, now that the authoritative Mongrel has spoken he feels better. Several national level stars who are being recruited by Ohio State, Indiana, Kentucky, Marquette, Louisville, and several other areas closer to the Mongrel's lair participated. This year a brawl broke out between Patterson Catholic and Neumann-Garetti in the semi-final. The Hoops Gods are throwing some moving screens and leading with their elbows this morning after being robbed of a showdown between Patterson Catholic and Saint Benedicts. The aging Mongrel has been kicking around thoughts of spinning a yarn for the blog on the fights which have become an epidemic at Chicago Public League games between players in some cases and fans in other cases. Last year games were cancelled, spectators killed, and some games games were played with no spectators at all. Come on fellas, this is a game. If the other guy is better than you or a little meaner than you, you don't get to win by fighting. In fact it kind of makes you look like a wuss when you can't handle getting slapped around a little by somebody who is better or is willing to work a little harder, you gotta prove it the right way boys. Hoops is hoops, non-hoops is non-hoops. The worried Mongrel will keep a close eye on how CPL officials address this problem, but it is not limited to Chicago unfortunately.

OK, this section is where the tricky Mongrel will confuse you with alliteration aplenty and some words that just sort of sound a little funny which might tell similar stories. Bark bark no shell games please. An outstanding blog the Mongrel peruses from time to time is now twitting away. Hoosier Hills Hoops can be found at http://twitter.com/hoosierhills. They reported that defending 4A Indiana state champion Bloomington South crushed New Albany who ended the season #2 in the state in the same class before the tournament. The score was 94-34, but it was the USSFA runner up game. Bloomington South finished the season undefeated last year but lost Indiana Mr Basketball Jordan Hulls. Butler University 2010 commitment Eric Fromm, Xavier University 2011 commitment Dee Davis, and high major 2011 prospect Spencer Turner return along with newcomers first team All-State (AZ) and 2011 Indiana University commitment Matt Carlino and 2012 Illinois import TJ Bell. Turner was fresh back from the Michigan elite camp and the keen Mongrel believes he has gotten in much better shape than he was last summer. The USSFA championship was won by Mount Vernon, which has benefited from the play of a trio of 2010 stars that Hoosier Hoops Report (different from Hoosier Hills Report, see the tricky Mongrel wasn't pulling your leg) says look to be mid majors. Hoosier Hoops Report's twitter page is http://twitter.com/HHReport and they provided some excellent coverage of the event including 3A Mount Vernon's double digit wins over 4A favorites Bloomington South and Carmel. PJ Hubert was lighting it up behind the arch again and Daniel Turner and DeArmond Davis had big tournaments as well. The good Mongrel has been fond of Daniel Turner's game for a while and is looking forward to seeing the trio play this year. Turner is a scrappy fighter and plays strong and is a pretty good athlete at 6'5.

The good Mongrel retreated from the Twitter fronteir to the blogsphere which his mind has finally embraced, and the relieved Mongrel spent some time just looking at some web sites for some other summer league and team camp news. As always, Chicago Hoops and their e-rival Illinois Prep Bullseye both present a wealth of good free information, not to mention Chicago Hoops' premium content. This time we'll site the good work of the Bullseye http://ilprepbullseye.com/page50.html which reported that at the satellite University of Illinois team camp Foreman HS teammates 2010 LeVonte Dority and 2010 Mike McCall were outstanding once again. McCall has recently returned from the Texas AM elite camp and Dority returned from Indiana University's elite camp and both appear to be on a roll this summer. The good Mongrel loves his Chicago point guards. Dority seems to get a bit more national buzz than McCall but the Chicago media seem to see it the other way.