Rush The Court

Dear NCAA,
We promise that we have not had any contact with recruits outside the parameters set forth by your upstanding institution.

Sincerely,
Rush the Court

• Obviously the big news this past week has been the punishment of Bruce Pearl and the effect it would have on Tennessee‘s ability to recruit. It looks like some players including RTC favorite Adonis Thomas are beginning to express some reservations about going to a school that is sure to be closely followed by the NCAA.
• The big actual recruiting news is that Arizona landed Josiah Turner, the #3 ranked point guard in this year’s class. Now Sean Miller faces an interesting dilemma — how to fit all his scholarship players onto a roster in light of the NCAA sanctions against them stemming from the Lute Olson era. One of the recruits that many expect the Wildcats to be in contention for is LeBryan Nash, but it appears like the talented small forward is leaning towards Oklahoma State over Arizona, Kansas, and Baylor.

  Sean Miller will be counting on Turner to turn the Wildcats around

• Speaking of point guards. . . Austin Rivers, the de facto #1 point guard in the country and possibly the top player in the country, has narrowed his list down to three schools — Duke, UNC, and Kansas — after eliminating Florida from consideration. Some are speculating that Duke, which many consider to be the leader in the Rivers sweepstakes, could land both Rivers and Quinn Cook. [Ed. Note: Is Coach K cool with his star player and a potential recruit hanging out with Michael Beasley, a player of questionable character?]
• Ohio State received a commitment from Sam Thompson, one of the top small forwards in this year’s class, with a little help from Evan Turner, who apparently has been texting Thompson to convince him to go to Columbus [Ed. Note: Is this allowed by the NCAA?].
• With all of these top recruits committing it is interesting and somewhat refreshing to see Norvel Pelle, the #2 center in this year’s senior class, just beginning to take home visits.
• Over the past few weeks we have mentioned the bizarre tale of JaKarr Sampson who set off a war of words between the coach of St. Vincent-St. Mary (aka LeBron’s school) and Xavier after the small forward transferred to a prep school in New Hampshire. To be fair, most of the words (and all of the antagonistic ones) were coming from SVSM. Now it turns out that Xavier did not end up landing Sampson, as he committed to play for St. John’s adding to the growing “Lavin’s Ark”. Opinion on Sampson’s ability differs as some people like Evan Daniels consider him a top 50 recruit while others like Jeff Goodman are a little more skeptical of Sampson’s ability.
• Sampson’s new teammate Elijah Carter, who previously committed to St. Bonaventure, has a new top five: Seton Hall, Cincinnati, Oregon State, Charlotte, and Clemson.
• In an interesting piece of news, FSU received a commitment from Kiel Turpin, the son of former Kentucky great Melvin Turpin who committed suicide in July. Kiel wasn’t widely recruited out of high school, but a late growth spurt (from 6’5 to 6’11) and some major growth in his game led the Seminoles to pursue him from the JUCO ranks. We want to congratulate Kiel and wish him the best of luck as we are sure he has had to endure a lot the past few months.
• Meanwhile, Michigan received a commitment from Glenn Robinson III (the son of former Purdue great Glenn Robinson) to become a member of the Wolverines as part of the recruiting class of 2012. GR3 doesn’t have the same reputation as his father did as he is currently a borderline top 100 recruit depending what service you rely on, but his slashing style should help John Beilein as he tries to rebuild the Wolverines.
• Chasson Randle, one of the top remaining uncommitted point guards in this year’s senior class, appears to have narrowed his list to three schools: Purdue, Illinois, and Stanford. Randle will be in West Lafayette this weekend to see the Boilermakers’ football team take on perennial powerhouse Toledo and will follow up with visits to Illinois and Stanford later although both schools should be past the cream puff part of their schedule at that point (except for the whole Pac-10 part of Stanford’s schedule).