Recruiting Wars

Gary Parrish writs about Baylor and negative recruiting. A controversial story as he exposes some negative recruiting tactics by Baylor, such as a flyer promo crossing-out (in ink, not temper) Bob Knight and Billy Gillespie. But this comes from multiple sources, at least three separate coaching staffs said so. A couple of other examples highlighted in the story: mis-representing the graduation rates of another Big-12 university, and creating a highlight package of all the problems at Memphis for a recruit considering Memphis.

And this of course comes from Bryce Drew and his staff, Bryce Drew claiming to be a very religious man at a very religious university. Apparently the rules of what is ethical are flexible when it comes to sports? Another case of B.i.g.o.t.r.y from those claiming to be standing on a high moral ground? You be the judge :-)

When confronted by CBS interviews Drew started spinning like a good ole politician and apologized. Essentially apologized for getting caught. While nowhere near as severe as the Dave Bliss situation, Bryce Drew is no saint!

CSTV Top 100, 2007. Not ranked however, just sorted alphabetically.

HoopsUSA offers a variety of news and a nice collection of links relating to the world of recruiting and prep hoops. Included are stories on Kevin Love, OJ Mayo and Billy Walker, and the 2006 Summer Camp AAU circuit. Make sure you bookmark their site. Their list of links at the bottom of the page is one of the most comprehensive I have seen!

Another website of interest is HSBN.TV which features webcasts of high school basketball games and special events, including exclusive coverage of Nike's IS8.

Today I am trying a new blog look, hopefully to make the blog easier to read. If you have any suggestions on recommendations, please post them as a comment or send an email. Thanks!

2006-07 eligible Commitments

Recruiting-wise, here's what's available on TV:

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Top 100 JuCo players from JucoJunction.com

As you can see most of them have already signed with colleges and will play in the 2006-2007 season. But some of them are available, such as former Alabama guard Albert Webber.

CSTV showcased today the 2006 Reebok Big Time tourney special recap show. It is 90 minutes long (commercials included). They show highlights from multiple games. It is similar in style to their previous coverage of the ABCD camp in 2006 and also similar to their 2005 coverage.

As with most things on CSTV, it will repeat a few more times during the next few days/weeks, and it may also be available on their website cstv.com. They are also repeating the 2006 ABCD Camp special 90-minute show and the 30-minute Seth Davis Generation Next filmed during the ABCD camp.

In the Big Time tourney, AAU teams compete against each other (as opposed to dividing players in random teams in all-star-game fashion). Some of the teams profiled were the D1 Greyhounds - OJ Mayo, Billy Walker -, and the SoCal All-Stars (or something like that) with Kevin Love, Taylor King and Brandon Jenkins.

There is a new trend developing on the west coast and more specifically in the Pac 10. It's a big trend: teams are going big. Big but not necessarily not mobile.

Look at some of the height coming in the Pac 10 this year and next year, in addition to the ones already in school:

* Spencer Hawes
* the Lopez twins
* Euro imports: Roeland Schaftenaaar, Marco Spica (had he qualified)
* (Deon Thompson had he not be "stolen" by Roy Williams)

And in 2007:
* Kevin Love
* Alex Jacobson
* Eric Boetang (transfer; former McDonalds AA)
* Harper Kemp
* Emeka Iweka (not as tall but space-eater)

The signing of the Lopez twins at Stanford and Spencer Hawes at Washington essentially re-started the arms race for talented big men, which continued with the 2007 commitments. UCLA upped the ante in 2007 by getting Kevin Love, which should put more pressure on the other Pac10 teams to get more bigs...

Granted some of the players are so talented they may be one and done, but usually coaches hope for at least two (and dream of four). Typically players need more than one year to prepare for the NBA, with a few lottery exceptions...

As you can see from the list above, Washington, Stanford and UCLA have a premium big man, with Cal, Arizona, ASU and OSU getting talented four-year big men to counter. The 2007 recruiting is far from over, so expect more size in the Pac 10!

CSTV Recruiting reports that the Silver Fox got a recommitment from Arizona guard Jerryd Bayless. Bayless apparently wanted to test the water, but it looks like he is back now at U of A. Looks like the beginning of another Salim-Stoudamire-like player/coach relationship at U of A ;-) Other schools Bayless was looking at with varying degrees of interest: Texas, Illinois, Carolina, Kansas.

But kidding aside, Lute Olson can reload as fast as anybody else.

My thanks for linking to this blog go to the Bruins Online message board (Scout.com) and the Chicago-Illini Sports blogspot:

http://mb26.scout.com/fbroreadersfrm1
http://chicago-illini-sports.blogspot.com/

Update: Fixed url for Bruins Online forum.

The BigEastBasketballBlog takes a look at the 2007-08 rosters of all 16 Big East teams. This is a valueable resource for those following the recruiting process by looking at the number of scholarships and team needs (and projecting who will bolt for the NBA).

Fans of free stuff will be delighted to find out that Clark Francis (CF) of HoopScoopOnline and the weekly Hoop Scoop Radio/Internet show has increased the number of free stuff posted on his website.

He provides the Top 10 classes of 2007 thru 2011, as well as the Top 10 players at each of the big shoe company camps of this summer (Nike All-Am, Rbk ABCD, Adidas Superstar). One thing that Clark Francis deserves extra credit for is separating the Five-Year-Players from the Four-Year-Players in his high-school rankings. Five-Year-Players can usually be found in prep schools that specialize in post-graduate players.

And yes, Clark Francis joins other experts in ranking Kevin Love ahead of OJ Mayo. (Didn't they pick some tall guy ahead of Michael Jordan in the NBA Draft a few years ago?)

On top of that, Clark Francis also offers the Top 15 class ranking of 2007 for free. He uses his own formula to calculate the class rankings by assigning weights to each player's individual ranking.

Syracuse leads the way with five new recruits (the miracle run in the Big East tourney and Boeheim's dramatic support of G-Mac surely helped!). Gonzaga is at #15 (Thanks Ammo!). Transfers are not counted in the rankings, but JC players are.

The biggest surprise may be Purdue at #3. Matt Painter has been hard at work. But can he hold on to these recruits after Purdue has another miserable season?

On top of that, CF also offers one day per week's worth of content for free.

PS> There is a small typo under Duke where "Taylor King" is printed as "Taylor Smith".

CSTV's latest recruiting updates include the Cal Bears beating Herb Sendek for a 2007 forward, a former Colorado State player find a new home in Texas, media-savvy Seth Greenberg gets two 2008 verbals, GW gets one of Kevin Love's teammates (coast2coast), and Fresno State gets a former Alabama forward.

In today's edition, Gonzaga picks up a 2008 verbal from a forward in Oregon (Thanks Ammo, Sincerely Mark Few), Marquette beats Alabama, an Oak Hill player picks FSU, while Miami gets Durham, and Gonzo gets a big man. Read it all about it at http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/

TSN's Mike DeCourcy has a new *Dish column on the summer recruiting scene in Vegas.. His story talks about Kevin Love and fast food, Chris Bosh's younger twin, the next Deron Williams (sort of), the evil empire at Duke, and Roy's recruiting habbits (only one scholarship to give, but the NBA draft could create as many as four additional roster openings - especially if they win it all).

Tom Crean has a secret weapon in recruiting. In fact his secret weapon is so good Tom Crean may not even have to lift a finger. The secret weapon is the success of NBA superstar D-Wade!

Marquette picked up a verbal from 2008 wing Nick Williams. More details on this story at the Marquette Blogger blog and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

The latest recruiting news from CSTV/FansOnly and Bill Hodges are always here:http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/

Some of the recent developments:
* Billy Gillespie and Texas A&M continue to pile up the recruits for 2007. Watch out Rick Barnes!
* The Brady Bunch adds a 2007 recruit
* Post-Westphal Pepperdine gets a Top100 player



Transfers
* Jalloh - who had philosophical differences with Phil Martelli at times - is now transfering to a presidential university.
* Millard (ex-Louisville) heads to Creighton
* Brian Johnson (ex-Louisville) transfers out. Possible destinations FSU and GW.

MSNBC has an interesting AP story on mid-major recruiting. It talks about George Mason, the Missouri Valley conference, and of course Gonzaga. Infact Mike DeCourcy of TSN has a story on post-Ammo Gonzaga being a cool spot.

Mr Goodman of FoxSports has a big table tracking down all the transfers eligible for the 2006-07 season and beyond. http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/5491136

The good people at CHN (collegehoopsnet.com) have updated their recruiting pages with more news from the summer camps, as well as recruiting analysis for the Big East and the SEC. CHN Recruiting

During an interview with NBATV during the NBA Summer League broadcasts on NBATV, Chris Paul was touting an up-and-coming recruit he saw at a recent basketball camp. Except this recruit is just ten years old (!). But if Justin Jennifer becomes a future NBA superstar then Chris Paul will be considered a scouting genius!

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