Rush The Court

After a week off due to some outside issues we are back with a lot of links that should keep you satiated while waiting for college football to come to its anti-climatic finish and the nation can turn its full attention to college basketball.

• ESPN has a new #1 in the class of 2011 rankings: Austin Rivers. Rivers has not committed yet, but most of the speculation that we have heard has him leaning towards Duke although he apparently will also visit Kansas and UNC.

  Your new #1 recruit?

• Mike DeCourcy disagrees with the ESPN rankings as he has a new #1: Adonis Thomas. We have previously profiled Thomas and his decision to go the reality TV route for his recruiting process. We never said we doubted his ability. We just questioned his methods of making himself a household name.

More Adonis after the jump.

• Score another one for Kentucky as they landed Kyle Wiltjer, a top 5 power forward in this year’s class, to go with their already ridiculously loaded class of 2011. The question now is whether or not they can land Quincy Miller to complete yet another super class for the Wildcats and essentially end the conversation about whether or not this 3-year run by Kentucky is the greatest group of recruits ever.
• For his part, Miller visited Louisville this weekend and appeared to like it there. Jody Demling has more here about Miller and other top recruits if you are willing to scroll through his chat.
• Speaking of Kentucky, KSR provides us with a quick rundown of Kentucky‘s latest recruiting efforts. As you can guess John Calipari is only going after the big names.
• Josiah Turner, the #2 point guard in this year’s class, has narrowed his list of schools to 5 (Louisville, UCLA,Arizona, Oregon, and Kansas) and has set dates for his projected visits.
• Steve Lavin is beginning to build his “Noah’s Ark” at St. John’s with the addition of Maurice Harkless, a small forward who had initially committed to UConn before backing out recently.
• Rutgers landed its top recruit of the early Mike Rice era when top 10 power forward Kadeem Jack committed to the Scarlet Knights.

• Maryland appears to be targeting Nick Faust, a highly rated shooting guard out of Baltimore, but it appears like Faust’s list is growing (an ominous sign for Terrapin fans).
• It looks like an in-state battle between Georgia and Georgia Tech for power forward Julian Royal after the power forward narrowed it down to those two schools and Wake Forest (most analysts expect the Demon Deacons to be trailing for the Georgia native).
• It has been a rough stretch for Arkansas coach John Pelphrey, but things may start turning around as he is beginning to pull in more big-name recruits like Missouri native and 5-star guard B.J. Young.
• While they are waiting on Cody Zeller to commit, Indiana received a commitment from rising freshman James Blackmon Jr. To be fair, Billy Gillispie thinks that Tom Crean could be a bit more aggressive in his recruiting of young talent.
• We mentioned it a previous Morning Five, but the fall out between Xavier and St. Vincent-St. Mary High (aka LeBron’s high school) continues to be amusing. It appears to have started when star forward JaKarr Sampson transferred from SVSM to Brewster Academy in New Hampshire. SVSM’s coach Dru Joyce thinks that Xavier was the driving force behind the move and has stated Xavier would no longer be allowed to recruit SVSM players adding “Those guys have made an enemy here”. Xavier coach Chris Mack has denied those accusations and the Musketeers no longer appear to even be recruiting Sampson. Furthermore, Sampson’s mother denies that Xavier had anything to do with the move and Brewster’s coach states that he was never in contact with anybody from Xavier. Like we said before, we will keep an eye on this one and update you on anything newsworthy.
• After Kevin Anderson graduates following this season, Richmond will need to find a suitable replacement for him. In an attempt to do so, they recently received a commitment from Kendall Anthony, who will need to surprise the recruiting gurus to do so as he currently is not rated by the major recruiting services.
• During our last post we mentioned Kyle Anderson‘s interesting choice of recent visits. Now his father gives us some insight into those visits. We still don’t see the #1 point guard in next year’s class going to La Salle no matter what his father says about the academic advisors there.
• UMass appears to have added Luke Cothron, a power forward who had originally committed to North Carolina State then Auburn before being ruled academically ineligible for the upcoming season. Now Cothron is expected to be eligible for the 2011-12 season through a Prop 48 clause.
• Ok, we promised you more Adonis Thomas and here it is. This guy is going to be a YouTube sensation before he enrolls in college.