Recruiting Wars

The fourth of the all-star games, the Roundball Classic, seems to have gone the way of Sonny Vaccaro, out of the spotlight, and into the limelight. We did not find any information online about a potential 44th annual Roundball classic.

The Roundball website does not mention 2008, and it doesn't seem to have been updated since the 2007 roundball classic.

This story from last year in the Chicago Tribune seems to hint that that was it for the Roundball Classic, 43 years of all-star games are now in the history books!

Goodbye Roundball :( This also has a negative side-effect on the players, as about a dozen high school players will no longer get to play in a high profile post-season all-star game.

Usually McDonalds game gets the best 24 players, the Nike Hoops Summit, being an USA Basketball/FIBA event gets the best 10 or so, and usually the McDonalds players split between the Roundball and the Jordan Classic. that meant that about twenty more players got to play either in the Roundball or Jordan. With Roundball sidelined, those dozen kids don't get to play anymore...

It's all-star season again basketball fans! The 2008 McDonalds All-American game is set to tip off on Wednesday March 26, at 930pm eastern (630pm pacific) on ESPN and ESPN-HD. The 31st McDonalds game may tip-off a bit later, as there is an NBA game right before it on ESPN, Phoenix visits the Boston Celtics.

According to the tv listings, there will be a repeat at 1230pm pacific (330pm eastern) on Friday on ESPN2. Not sure if this is the Women game or a repeat of the men's game. Festivities are at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee where the NCAA-dramatic-loss tears of the Marquette fans will stain the court ;-)

Here is the official pres release announcing the game, along with the Offiical McDonalds All American website, which is a giant Flash site and plays loud music when it loads, so if you are reading this in the middle of the night, be sure to adjust your speakers volume beforehand, otherwise you'll wake up the neighborhood ;-)


The Rosters
The game will be highlighted by prep hoopster stars like Tyreke Evans, JRue Holiday, Brandon Jennings, Greg Monroe, Samardo Samuels and such.

Super-scout Dave Telep of broke down the field of 24 and also talked about the players left out of the McDonalds game. A couple of players that had committed to Indiana and Kentucky were left out, while Delvin Roe, an Izzo super-recruit was left out on a technicality.

As you may recall, the selections of the players are not entirely "innocent", there are political, regional, racial, and collegiate biases. For example, if a player commits to Duke or Carolina they are more likely to be selected to the game. If a player is "deemed" by the selection cmte to have "issues", they will be left out. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

But enough time spend in Negative Town, there's also a nicely done page with detailed roster information, and that page is... *drumroll* Wikipedia.


The Conferences
Only two of the 24 players remain uncommitted, which is about right in the post "straight out of high school and on to the NBA draft" era.

North Carolina leads the way with a trio of players, a point guard in Larry Drew (yes, the son of the former NBA and Italian League great), a forward in Ed Davis, and a center in Tyler Zeller. Ole Roy was all over the place, as the three recruits come from California, Virginia and Indiana.

Thad Matta continues to load up the Buckeye Express with yet another center, BJ Mullens, and wing William Buford. Remember the 5/8 rule? Perhaps there should be a rule to limit a school to only two 7-footers every three years ;-) Thad Matta picked up Greg Oden in 2006, Kosta Koufos in 2007, and now BJ Mullens for 2008-2009! Mercy!

UCLA is the other team with two players, super-versatile sensation Jrue Holiday of SoCal, and Riverside wing Malcolm Lee. Is he the next Arron Afflalo, because Chace Stanback isn't getting any PT.

The Pac-10 has a few more players, with USC getting Demar DeRozan, and Arizona speedy Brandon Jennings of Oak Hill. The game is played in Oregon, so the Nike Ducks are abl to "squeeze" in one of their recruits, big center Michael Dunigan.

But the ACC has clearly won this all-star game roster once again, as Wake Forest has Al-Farouq Aminu, Virginia has Sylven Landesberg, Florida State has Chris Singleton, the Pookies have Elliott Williams, and Georgia Tech has supermodel Iman (Shumpert). And of course the UNC trio mentioned above.

The Big Yeast is big in size, but not in recruits! They only have Samardo Samuels (Louisville), Greg Monroe (Georgetown), Kemba Walker (UConnhoun), and Mike Rosario (Rutgers, Mr Jersey paying off). For a 16-team league of high profile programs and coaches, this is not enough!

The SEC is represented by phenom JyMychael Green (Alabama) and the Big 12 by trouble-maker (?) Willie Warren (Oklahoma). The Big Ten is "saved" by Ohio State mentioned above.

And how about the "mid-majors" (aka non-BCS colleges)? Will they get at least one player? Well they did! The Nevada Foxes were able to convice local forward Luke Babbitt (Lorena not included) to stay up!


Don't forget the Other All-star games
There's the 2008 Jordan Brand Classic, which this time will be shown live on ESPN2, instead of hiding on ESPNU, and only getting a delayed repeat run on ESPN2 when everyone forgets about college and high-school hoops. This was a nice touch and kudos to the people who worked to make this happen. You know who you are!

And also the Nike Hoop Summit, under the umbrella of FIBA and USA Basketball. This is not technically an all-star game, although it really is :)

The Kelvin Sampson situation has created a chain reaction of events which led to super-forward recruit Devin Ebanks to use the Kelvin Sampson escape clause in his letter of intent and break free!

So who wants a newly available and super talented Devin Ebanks? Well, everyone of course. But from what is written on the net and reported on CSTV (Brian Curtis), into the mix now are John Calipari and his Memphis Tigers, Rick Barnes and his crazy Longhorns, and Mr Jersey and Rutgers. IU of course is still in the game, but they don't even have a coach for the 2008-2009 season. But they do have a 10-person coaching search committee to help in finding their next troubled coach :)

Not familiar with Devin Ebanks? Be sure to check his profile at Scout.com, and at Rivals. You do not need to subscribe or sign-up to view the profiles.

Kentucky Ink has posted new recruiting news, Billy Clyde Gillispie, hot on the deals of the amazing in-season burn-in and comeback, has picked up yet another player, Kevin Galloway. For more details and to join in the discussion, be sure to sign-in or register with the KI forums.

During the episode of "Halls of Fame" on FSN and Fox College Sports that spotlighted the life and career of Roy Williams, Ole Roy made this interesting comment on recruiting:

Recruiting is like shaving. When you take a day off, somebody notices!

How true! And also how crazy is the world of recruiting!

For repeats, check your local FSN and Fox College Sports listings, or check their respective websites for available downloads.

The future looks even brighter for Mike Davis and the UAB Blazers as the highly touted DeMarcus Cousins has committed to play there. DeMarcus of LeFlore is listed as second best center in the class of 2009 by Scout.com.

The details of his commitment at Al.com, an all things Alabama website.

And you know the world of sports has changed with the propagation of the internet, DeMarcus has a nicely designed website devoted to him! Meet DeMarcusCousins.org! It includes a biography as well.

We have some good news for you recruiting fans! This week will be changing this blog to a better template, one that is easier on the eyes, and has more streamlined colors! So fear not, in seven days or less, a much better template is coming up!

It will be about the same size, but it will be easier to read and navigate. It will also be slightly wider, so you can read more text per page. More details when we get closer to the actual changeover.

We expect this to be a very smooth transition, so fear not :)

Check your local listings basketball fans! High school basketball State Championships are airing or repeating in reruns on your regional FSN stations and on the three national Fox College Sports channels. Be sure to check your local listings as air times are all over the place, and some of them end up on FSN+ or the airtimes in the listings may be inaccurate.

Typically both men and women games are featured, and among others, games from the following states usually find their way on FCS or regional FSNs: California, Texas, Florida, Washington, Oregon, West Virginia, and such. Be sure to check local listings as we can't keep track of the whole nation.