Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Proposed Rule Changes Will Open Up Contact Between Recruits and Coaches

College Coaches Would Be Able To Contact And Evaluate Prospects More Under the Proposed Rules Change.

NCAA To Vote On Potential Changes Today. The NCAA Leadership Council will vote on a number of proposals today that could change the recruiting model and deregulate much of the communication between prospects and coaches. One of the biggest proposals is a change in policy that will make texts, calls, e-mails and the like unlimited beginning on June 15 of a recruit’s sophomore year. Currently, texts aren’t allowed, phone calls are limited, and e-mails unlimited. Two other proposed changes that involve communication between players and coaches include allowing contact with juniors at the prospect’s school in months other than April.  During April, college programs could do in-home visits with prospects. Another potential change worth noting is the rule that would let prospects take official visits beginning January 1 of their junior year, including paid travel expenses for the recruit and his two parents or legal guardians. Although the most significant changes would be with respect to the contact period, the evaluation period would be significantly affected as well. Coaches would be allowed to go to sanctioned events in April, although the dates have not been determined.  The thought is that the April evaluation periods will constitute two weekends beginning on a Friday evening and running through Sunday afternoon. Also, the July evaluation period will be narrowed into three four-day periods. The periods will run from Wednesday at 5 PM to Sunday at 5 PM. However, the dates have not yet been specified.

What They’re Saying

• Senior stud Alex Poythress on his Memphis visit: “It was really good; I enjoyed it. We got here and watched practice. I hung out with the players. I got to watch [strength and conditioning coach] Frank [Matrisciano] work out Z-Bo (Memphis Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph) and another NBA player. I went to [head] coach [Josh] Pastner‘s house. I enjoyed it overall.” Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Trio of Class of 2011 Prospects Experiencing Eligibility Issues

This Is Probably How Bill Self Reacted When His Two Top Freshmen Were Ruled Ineligible.

Kansas Duo Out For 2011-12 Season, Louisville’s Blackshear In Danger. Kansas freshmen small forward Ben McLemore  and power forward Jamari Traylor were ruled ineligible by the NCAA, head coach Bill Self announced Friday. The pair of forwards were declared partial qualifiers meaning they can’t take part in any team activities until the beginning of the second semester and can’t participate in any games in the upcoming basketball season. This comes as a shocker since the Jayhawks’ coaching staff thought the duo would indubitably qualify although this isn’t the first time Kansas has had trouble with freshman qualifying. Just last month, the NCAA deemed freshman power forward Braeden Anderson a partial qualifier who can’t accept a scholarship for the 2011-12 school year. Louisville freshman shooting guard Wayne Blackshear is also undergoing eligibility issues. Although Cardinal head coach Rick Pitino remains optimistic regarding Blackshear’s chances of being cleared, this isn’t the first time a Louisville freshman faced eligibility issues either. Last month, shooting guard Kevin Ware (yes, that Kevin Ware) was ruled ineligible for the year although he could play games in the spring semester if his SAT scores increase (which he’ll be re-taking next week).

What They’re Saying [About Midnight Madness]

We’ve had a lot of coverage here at RTC on Midnight Madness from the best events to the best dunks and the best stories via Twitter, but now we get to take a look at what the best prospects in the country had to say about the celebrations to kick off the college basketball year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Indiana Self-Reports NCAA Rules Violation

Tom Crean Made a Mistake in the Recruitment of Gary Harris.

Indiana Commits Violation While Still On Probation. Indiana, who is still on probation until November 24 for major rules violations under former head coach Kelvin Sampson, self-reported a secondary recruiting violation recently that involved head coach Tom Crean visiting Class of 2012 shooting guard Gary Harris the day after the contact period ended. According to Indiana’s self-report, assistant coach Tim Buckley discovered the violation later that day and reported it to the Indiana compliance office. The school then contacted the NCAA that same day. Indiana docked itself two days on the recruiting trail as punishment for the violation after consulting with NCAA enforcement representative Chris Strobel. Although the potential penalty for a minor violation like this will likely have minimal impact on IU, one can’t help but wonder what was going on in Crean’s head. You know you’re on probation, you know this rule inside and out, and one of your commits has been associated with rules violations within the last six months. When you’ve been in the spotlight this much for potential rules violations, it will only hurt you. The ironic twist in all this is that Crean did this to get an upper hand in recruiting, but in all likelihood it will set him back since multiple prospects have told RTC in the past that they have completely stayed away from schools that were just thought to be committing violations, not to mention schools that were actually penalized like Indiana. By next week’s column, we should have a better idea of any possible sanctions the NCAA may impose.

What Troy Williams Is Saying

Class of 2013 standout small forward Troy Williams talked to Blue Grass Hoops about his visit and why the Wildcats are standing out right now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Purvis Picks In-State Wolfpack

North Carolina State head coach Mark Gottfried has to be happy about Purvis' commitment.

Things Looking Good For N.C. State Head Coach Mark Gottfried. Class of 2012 shooting guard Rodney Purvis committed to North Carolina State Friday giving the Wolfpack one of the best guard combinations in any recruiting class thus far between him and point guard Tyler Lewis (to see why Purvis committed check out the “What They’re Saying” section). Purvis ended one of the more interesting recruitments in the class after he committed to Louisville last December, de-committed from the Cardinals in May, made it look like it was a three-horse race between Duke, N.C. State and Missouri, and expanded his list to eight schools that included North Carolina Central and Virginia Commonwealth. His commitment comes just a month after Class of 2012 shooting guard Torian Graham de-committed from the Wolfpack and after Lewis predicted Purvis would be N.C. State’s next commit. This year’s senior class is looking like it could shape into a top ten recruiting class for N.C. State head coach Mark Gottfried. Although Graham de-committed, the Wolfpack made small forward T.J. Warren‘s final four list of schools along with Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Gottfried also still has a shot at small forward Devonta Pollard and power forward Amile Jefferson among many others in the Class of 2012.

What They’re Saying

• Senior Rodney Purvis on committing to North Carolina State: “After many conversations and prayers with the Lord, and visits, I came to a conclusion. There is no place like home.”

A little over two weeks after he decided to spend an extra year in prep school rather than go to college Andre Drummond announced that he had changed his mind and would head to Connecticut this fall. It was a shocking change of heart even by the standards of a typical teenager that dramatically changes the landscape of college basketball next season. Instead of the expected North Carolina–Kentucky showdown that college basketball writers have been hyping since the NBA Draft deadline passed we should get a national title picture that is a little less clear. While the Huskies won’t go straight to the top of the pack they may possess the most talented starting line-up in the country with Shabazz Napier, Jeremy Lamb, Roscoe Smith, Alex Oriakhi, and Drummond. Even though that group will need a little time to mesh and we expect the other four to take a while to adjust to life without Kemba Walker that is one of most talented, versatile line-ups we have seen in several years.

Drummond and Muhammad may never meet in college now

On top of adding the talent of a potential #1 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft to the defending national champions, Drummond’s decision gives Jim Calhoun (we are assuming that he is definitely coming back at this point) the flexibility to use two other less-hyped, but still very talented freshmen–DeAndre Daniels and Ryan Boatright–in more targeted action early in their college careers. Perhaps more importantly it allows Smith to move to small forward and Oriakhi, who went through maddening stretches last season where he couldn’t grab a rebound, to power forward where he should be able to overpower most of the other power forwards he faces. And when the leaner, more athletic blow by Oriakhi? They wind up facing Drummond, a player whom many NBA scouts have compared to Amar’e Stoudamire (a little premature, but if you watch the video below you will see why).

Contrary to some of the reaction online this doesn’t automatically vault the Huskies into the #1 spot and a sure-fire repeat champion like Duke appeared to be last season before Kyrie Irving‘s injury. Like the other top contenders the Huskies have their own issues to deal with. The Huskies will have to deal with the obvious issue of how their offense functions without Walker dominating the ball, adjusting to having to run more of the offense through the post, and sorting out a rotation that will rely on freshman who are unproven at the college level no matter how talented they are. What Drummond’s decision does mean is that this year’s national championship picture is suddenly a three-horse race and a year in which college basketball was expected to have its most talent in nearly a decade will get even deeper.

Every July, college basketball fans obsess over the July recruiting period where summer AAU legends are made and scholarships are won or lost. While most of the buzz this summer was over the superstars (particularly Shabazz Muhammad and class of 2013 recruit Nerlens Noel), the more interesting action was happening further down the ranking list. While ESPN’s decision to move Muhammad above Andre Drummond in their new rankings is interesting at some level, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t mean much. For the purposes of recruiting and scholarship offers, it is the guys that won’t be getting headlines on the front of ESPN.com or trending on Twitter who are more useful to look at. To that end, we took a look at the pre- and post-July recruiting rankings for the class of 2012 from ESPN.com and Scout.com to see which players were climbing up the ranking list and which ones were plummeting.

Shabazz and Drummond May Have Dominated the Headlines, But We Aren't as Interested in Them

To do this, we looked at where certain players were ranked before the July recruiting period and where they were ranked afterwards. The obvious caveat here is that rankings are subjective and some fans have accused scouts of a form of confirmation bias where they tend to rank players higher if they are recruited by certain schools (particularly Duke in basketball and Notre Dame in football) than if they were  being recruited by similarly powerful programs, but not the de facto face of the sport. Still, it seems reasonable to think that two independent scouts ranking players would be fairly reliable (assuming Dave Telep and Evan Daniels aren’t cheating off each other).

Read the rest of this entry »

The old saying goes that it’s not the name on the back of the jersey that matters, but the one on the front. How about the one on the envelope?

Last year P.J. Hairston found himself with a choice that most basketball-playin’ high school kids would kill to have to make. The star 6’5 shooting guard prospect from Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia had offers from all sorts of Division I programs and had narrowed his choices down to Duke and North Carolina. Not a bad spot to be in, eh? To many kids growing up in ACC country (and beyond), that’s the dream.

It Bodes Well For UNC That Hairston Appreciates Attention To Detail (J. Wolford/G'boro N&R)

He chose North Carolina…and Duke helped him with the decision. Hairston recently told the Greensboro News and Record that one of the reasons he chose the Tar Heels is because Duke often misspelled his name on the mailings they sent him. “Every time they sent me a letter, they wouldn’t spell my name right. And I’m like, ‘You can’t even spell my name right. How can I go here?’ I’m trying to figure out how that’s so hard.”

It’s a legitimate point. Hairston obviously had enough affection for the Duke program to have them in his top two despite repeated screw-ups of his name on the mailed materials. Hairston admits that there are other reasons he chose Chapel Hill over the Blue Devils, but this couldn’t have helped. Mike Krzyzewski — get ready for a huge scoop, here — still has a cadre of top-notch prospects coming to Durham next season, so you won’t catch Duke fans bemoaning the loss of any one recruit. Last we checked, though, Coach K doesn’t like finishing second to anyone — especially UNC. Knowing that a series of inexcusable clerical errors may have cost him the 12th-ranked player in the country means there’s a good chance that the guy addressing the envelopes is getting his backside gnawed on by the big boss over this one.

This is especially funny considering that at the same time Duke was recruting Hairston and getting his name wrong, they were also in the process of successfully courting another prospect from Virginia, namely 6’6 small forward Michael Gbinije, the 28th-ranked player on the ESPNU 100. So…”Gbinije” they got right. But not “P.J. Hairston?”

Remember, recruiters: God is in the details, and therefore so might be your shooting guard. Somebody at Duke couldn’t get the small detail of P.J. Hairston’s name right, and that’s one reason why you won’t see him suiting up in Blue Devil colors with fellow newcomers Dustin Rivers and Marshall Plumley next year.

When Scott Drew got Quincy Miller and Deuce Bello to commit to play for Baylor earlier this year, Bears fans celebrated the possibility that their team could have three of the most exciting players in the nation next season if Perry Jones decided to return to Baylor for his sophomore season. Those dreams appear to have taken a hit after Miller, considered one of the top five players in this year’s senior class, went down with a season-ending ACL tear on December 10th, which was later confirmed by Miller himself [Ed. Note: We love how his coach thinks it is Miller’s left knee]. Miller will undergo surgery tomorrow morning and is expected to take 6-8 months to recover, which should allow him to return to the court just in time to get him ready for Midnight Madness next fall. Of course as Miller’s return to the court nears there will still be questions about how effective he will be when he debuts in a Baylor uniform regardless of how confident his Tweets would have you believe he is in his return.

Baylor fans will be waiting anxiously for Miller's return to action

Just five days after taking back his prior commitment to Rick Barnes and the Longhorns, Myck Kabongo has recommitted to Texas stating that after taking a step back he realized that he had made the wrong decision and wanted to be a Longhorn. During that brief period, Kabongo was said to also be considering Syracuse, Duke, Kentucky, and North Carolina. While fans of all of those programs fantasized about adding the #2 point guard recruit to their already loaded squads most of the speculation focused around Kabongo heading to Durham to join Austin Rivers, the #1 point guard recruit by every major service and #1 overall by many services.

On the surface it would seem like any program would love to add a player of Kabongo’s caliber, but news has come out in recent days that some of those teams like Syracuse may not have been actively seeking Kabongo as they already had their rosters filled. While Rivers may have wanted to play with his good friend it might not have been so clear to the Blue Devil coaches that they should go after Kabongo with Rivers already committed and Quinn Cook reportedly announcing his decision (between Duke and UCLA) today at 5 PM. As for Kentucky, we all know how loaded their incoming classes are, but we also have to assume that a few of those players particularly guards might stay in school an extra year either to get to showcase their skills more or if the much-discussed looming NBA lockout actually happens. If that is the case, perhaps John Calipari was also less interested in Kabongo than one might imagine. That leaves the Tar Heels the one team that could definitely use some work at point guard as Seth Davis pointed out recently. Roy Williams has freshman Kendall Marshall who should be taking the starting job away from Larry Drew II by next year if not earlier. It’s unlikely that Williams turned away Kabongo given the fact that UNC does not appear to be in the running for any of this year’s coveted point guard recruits, but it does seem like Kabongo’s options may have been more limited than we previously thought. In any event, it is clear that Longhorn fans are glad to have their future point guard back. . . for now.

Demi and Ashton Kutcher are at the center of a (very) little controversy involving the University of Iowa basketball program.

According to the Des Moines Register, two high school prospects on a recruiting trip to the school met the two celebrities at a football game in September. Because Kutcher, who is from Iowa, briefly attended the school and is a very visible Hawkeye supporter, he and Demi could be considered as people who “represent the university’s athletic interests,” so having recruits meet them constitutes a violation.

Recruiting Violation...Or the Greatest Punk'd Prank of All Time?

The incident wasn’t fabricated by anyone associated with the university, so it can be considered an “unintentional” violation, and the school voluntarily reported it as such a few days after the encounter. After the recruits were quoted as having met the two celebrities in a suite at Kinnick Stadium during the Iowa vs Iowa State football game, the NCAA sent an inquiry letter to UI about the incident. The school self-reported four days later.

The two prospects in question are said to be Josh Oglesby, rated as a three-star recruit at ESPNU for the class of 2011, and Marcus Paige, rated 28th overall and the third-best point guard in the class of 2012. Oglesby committed to the Hawkeyes after this official visit.

Another aspect of the reported violation is that the high schoolers also met former Iowa players Reggie Evans and Dean Oliver after a pick-up game at Carver-Hawkeye arena, the site of UI’s home games, both of whom would be considered boosters.

Iowa now awaits the final verdict on this from the NCAA, but Iowa athletic director Mark Abbott told the Register that he did not think the incident would affect Oglesby’s verbal committment, or the continued recruitment of Paige. Even if nothing comes of this, you have to admit that the guy behind Punk’d and star of a slew of romantic comedies was the last person you’d ever have fingered in an NCAA recruiting violation.