1. Andrew Wiggins, the No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2014 out of Huntington Prep (WV) has decided to graduate early and reclassify to the 2013 class, Rivals.com announced Thursday. Wiggins is good enough that he’s already assumed the No. 1 spot in the class of 2013, supplanting Julius Randle or Jabari Parker, depending on whom you ask. Kentucky and Florida State remain in the lead for Wiggins’ services, but North Carolina and Kansas recently checked in on the 6’7″ Canadian as well. Kentucky seems like the obvious favorite at the time but the Wildcats already have five commitments in the class — three in the top 10 — leading to some serious competition for playing time. Wiggins’ father, Mitchell Wiggins, played for Florida State in the early 80s, which has obviously helped the Seminoles in his ongoing recruitment. Kansas and North Carolina sent assistants to Huntington earlier this week, but the interest between the two schools and Wiggins is still largely unknown.
2. Speaking of the Jayhawks, Kansas announced Thursday the installment of a four-year series with Georgetown to begin next December in Allen Fieldhouse. The two teams will meet in the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. during the 2014-15 and 2016-17 seasons with another trip to Kansas in 2015-16. The Hoyas are another quality non-conference opponent for Bill Self in a long line of quality non-conference opponents, from Duke and Kentucky to Michigan State and Ohio State in recent years. The primary incentive of this interesting Big 12/Big East match-up is to benefit KU’s east coast recruiting. Assistant coach Joe Dooley is an east coast native and has helped land a number of local recruits for the Jayhawks, such as the Morris twins (Philadelphia), Tyshawn Taylor (New Jersey) and Thomas Robinson (Washington, D.C.).
3. Baylor opened up its exhibition season with a 103-75 victory over Abilene Christian Thursday night in Waco. Junior guard Brady Heslip hit six three-pointers and finished with 18 points on the night. That Baylor gave up 75 points is a whole lot of scoring to give up to a Division II team, but the game was only an exhibition after all. There was nothing of note to take from the box score, obviously, but it was nice seeing one of those again after a six-month hiatus. Only two weeks until the real games begin.
4. Jeff Borzello of CBSSports.com ranked the top 30 freshman on Thursday, and put Kentucky center Nerlens Noel on top. The Big 12 had four freshmen on the list including three of the top 10. Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart was second on the list, and his versatility will give him plenty of opportunities to score this season while also racking up plenty of assists alongside scorer Le’Bryan Nash. The Big 12 rounded out its choices with Baylor center Isaiah Austin (#7), Kansas guard Ben McLemore (#9), and Texas center Cameron Ridley (#18).
5. Yes, it’s another CBSSports.com list. They’ve been on fire this week with these preseason lists of players and Jeff Goodman added another quality piece on Thursday, ranking the top 30 transfers this season. Not surprisingly, former Xavier standout Mark Lyons — now at Arizona — topped the list, but not far behind Lyons was Iowa State forward Will Clyburn (#4), who averaged 17.1 PPG and 7.8 RPG for Utah two seasons ago, both team highs. Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg seems to love Clyburn, another solid transfer to venture to Ames the last few years. The Cyclones were represented again with former Michigan State guard Korie Lucious coming in at No. 17. Big 12 newcomer West Virginia had two players on the list as well, center Aaric Murray (#5) and point guard Juwan Staten (#13). Oklahoma junior forward Amath M’Baye was the fifth Big 12 player on the list (#23), and was recently named a team captain.

KoryCarpenter (150 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2012 at 7:31 am by KoryCarpenter and is filed under big 12, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: aaric murray, baylor, ben mclemore, cameron ridley, iowa state, kansas, korie lucious, marcus smart, west virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.