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.

Thursday July 9 AAU and Camp roundup.

Cerroni and Patterson Dominate Hoosier Shootout is in the books. Spiece Indy Stars won the 15U game with big performances from Ron Patterson and point guard Kellon Thomas. Rhett Smith and Austin Burgette scored well and Wisconsin Playground Warriors super-star JP Tokoto was held in check with the Star's outstanding wings in Jeremy Hollowell and Drew. Drew is a 6'6 kid with a lot of the same length and versatility that gets coaches so excited about Hollowell but is a bit less farther along with his finishing at this point. He is an excellent athlete and will be a big time player one day in the not too distant future. Hollowell has been mentioned several times here and has offers on the table from Cincinnati and Iowa already and is in demand from Indiana, Ohio State, and other high majors. Tokoto and Popcorn Morris made the all tourney team for 2012 players for the Warriors squad.

Wisconsin Green Bay 2010 commitment Kameron Cerroni went hyper-nutso-ballistic in this tournament and set the tourney record for points scored in the event on the way to winning the title for the Wisconsin Playground Warriors. The Warriors are best known for their twin towers in Evan Anderson and Ben Mills and some of the younger players who play up sometimes such as Tokoto. But it was Cerroni who scored 48 points in a quarterfinal game and averaged 27.5 ppg in the tournament. He went for 18 this morning to beat the Shining Star Sports in the championship game.
http://www.wishoops.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/message.aspx?f=123&id=1042462
Here is a link to a HoosierNation.com story by John Decker on Burgette. http://indiana.scout.com/2/878026.html Burgette has a Cincinnati offer and strong interest from Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, and Xavier.

Another article from the Scout network, this time Redhawk Insider on Indianapolis (Manual) point guard Crishawn Hopkins who now has offers from Miami, Butler, and Wright State. He also has interest from Indiana, Virginia, and Arizona State. See earlier blog posts on Hopkins' game or do a youtube search on his dunks. You won't believe your eyes. He is under the radar because he missed some time in a couple of seasons for academics, but he is a bright kid and has turned it on and is taking summer school and making the grades now. http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=2&c=877991 Another article from their site updates Miami checking in on Covington Holmes star Ricardo Johnson who is my favorite unsigned senior in Kentucky. Johnson still only has the one offer from Bradley but he is being watched by several mid majors and some high majors.

Adidas It Takes Five was completed. The 17U champs was Triple Threat, the 16U champs were the Derek Smith All Stars, and the 15U champs was Indiana Elite/Team Indiana.

Here is a free recap from ESPN Scouts.inc writer John Stovall that gives good reviews to Indiana 2011 commitment Matt Carlino, Indianapoils North-Central 2012 combo guard Devontes Smith-Rivera, and 2013 Lansing Star Charles Tucker. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4316431

Here are some comments on some Indiana Elite kids we've covered and Ricardo Johnson from hoopsreport.com. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/eventreports/morefromthequeencity

King City Classic is on its final day. I've been pushing the NBE Blog and still suggest going there for info on many of the higher profile events and they were all over King City Classic. See link on my sidebar. For now, here is a link to a great recruiting update from U Michigan hoops. It has great links from the blog to information on the King City Classic and many of the players. One interesting link to follow is the Detroit News link and a blurb on there about how talented Jordan Crawford is even when compared to the other college players there. Xavier should be a tough out with Crawford added to an already strong roster after sitting out a year for transfer.
http://www.umhoops.com/2009/07/09/thursday-recruiting-bullets/ There is a lot of stuff on Bloomington South (Indiana) sharp shooter Spencer Turner and UM commit Evan Smotrycz.

Reebok All-Star Camp is in its second day in Philadelphia. I can't find a lot other than the NBE blog on this one. Most of what I'm hearing from there has to do with coaches visiting or how cheap Reebok went this year as they stopped keeping stats other than scoring. If I run across anything else tonight I'll add it later.

NY2LA Invitational in Milwaukee is wrapping up. Here is a day 3 report. http://www.ny2lasports.com/NextLevelDay3recap.htm Former Wisconsin commit Vander Blue was the headliner yesterday. He has offers from Marquette, Indiana, and Wisconsin on the table and is ranked top 50 nationally by Scout and Rivals. Other players of note included Flavien Davis (Wisconsin Scholars 2010), Zach McCabe (Iowa Barnstormers 2010), Xavier Jones (SYF Players 2010), Jordan Myrick (Grand Rapids Storm 2011) and Meanstreets 2013 6'9 center Milos Kostic.

Going into today the 2013 group had All Iowa Attack Red (Todd Friedman and Peter Jok) against Wisconsin Force (Nick Fuller) in one semifinal and Martin Brothers Select (Nick Zellar) against Meanstreets (Alex Foster, Milos Kostic, Nick Davidson) in the other. The 2012 division had Martin Brothers Select (Adam Woodbury) against Playground Elite (Arroyo Edwards) in one semi-final and Rising Stars Gold (Conner Boehm and Akeem Springs) against All Iowa Attack Red in the other. The 16U division had Rising Stars Gold (Michael Henry) against Iowa Barnstormers (Seth Tuttle and Rashawn Suarez) in one semifinal and All Iowa Attack Red against Wisconsin Playmakers in the other. And finally the 2010 grouping had All Iowa Attack Red (Josh Oglesby and Zach McCabe and Trayvon Wright) against SYF Players (Jones, Mason, Kitchell) in one semi and Net Gain Sports (Chase Creekmur) against the Milwaukee Spartans (Vander Blue) in the other.


Kentucky Hoopfest is underway already. Several of the better teams from the tournaments just completed in Cincinnati and Indianapolis will be there. The Spiece Indy Stars 2012 squad had to forfeit their first pool match and will play at 7:15 this evening. Spiece is sending several squads including Select 2011. Here are some early links from day one action including big games for Jeffersonville freshman Daryl Baker fresh off his standout performance at Indiana's elite camp. http://www.hoosierhillshoops.com/2009/07/09/kentucky-hoopfest-baker-leads-tsi-16u-to-win/

Team Pride had a strong Adidas Take Five tournament with Kenny Kaminski (2012) having a good tournament and drawing quite a crowd including some Big Ten coaches. The 16U team made it to the quarter finals. They had a great opening day at the Kentucky Hoopfest going 5-0. The Mongrel did a feature on Kaminski a couple weeks back, he is worth taking a look at. According to Team Pride's Twitter page Kaminski and 6'9 Matt Costello played well at the 2012 level. http://twitter.com/TeamPride

Shining Star Sports has several teams in tourney and starts 12-4, here's the rundown they most likely beat the team you're looking for and here are the scores for each of their teams.
http://shiningstarsports.blogspot.com/2009/07/kentucky-hoopfest-update-day-one.html

InsidetheHall has a good rundown of Spiece Indy Stars after their 15U victory against Indiana Swish Orange 2012 on day 1. After winning the championship in the Hoosier Shootout this morning the Stars had to forfeit their early game so they have no room for error in their pool and pull even to 1-1 including the forfeit. ITH has updates on Burgette, Patterson, Hollowell, Kellon Thomas, Darwin Davis, Austin Etherington, and Jeremiah Davis. http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/07/09/kentucky-hoopfest-day-one/ I should get a firsthand look at some talent at the Ky Hoopfest on Friday and Saturday in between some prior commitments and will have some observations to share late.

The Louisville Courier-Journal's Jody Demling has a day one rundown hits on several Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky players including Spencer Turner, Ken Kaminski, Jeremiah Davis, Matt Carlino, Aaron Thomas, RJ Hunter, and Taylor Epley among others.
http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/07/kentucky-hoopfest-day-one.html

Chicago Summer Classic opened up today and I'm trying to round up some information on it. I read a report that 17U Mac Irvin Fire beat the Iowa Barnstormers in a close one. Alex Rossi had a big game but they lost in OT. Hearing some good twitters about Tavaras Heron and Travis Kellum as well as Michael Haynes.

I'll update later tonight if I find anything else from day one. All I can find so far is a premium article from Blackandgold.com who are doing a great job covering AAU events this summer. http://purdue.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=963733 They have reports on Nana Egwu, Chason Randle, and some 2013 prospects from Indiana and Michigan but nothing in depth on game action from the day.