Want to know why North Carolina is number one in nearly all preseason polls? Look no further than the Wooden Award Preseason Watch List, which notes the top fifty returning players in the country, four of whom will be wearing Carolina blue this season. Another surprise is that no other ACC teams are represented. First we’ll look at the four selections:
Harrison Barnes was a lock: face it, even Duke fans know Barnes and Jared Sullinger are the two favorites as far as national player of the year awards are concerned. As soon as he opted to return, the Tar Heels vaulted into the top national spot. Don’t expect another lackluster start out of Barnes this season.
Harrison Barnes Headlined Four North Carolina Players on the Wooden Presesason Top 50 List.
John Henson is a more interesting pick. Henson’s defensive prowess is well-documented. He alters nearly every drive or post-up within his extensive wingspan. Here’s the caveat: Henson is as raw as they come offensively. If it’s not an alley-oop from Kendall Marshall or a put-back dunk, he struggles (though it should be noted, his free throw shooting improved dramatically the second half of last season). Until we see how much Henson has developed, it will be tough to evaluate his chances as a player of the year candidate.
CBSSports.com: Gary Parrish thinks this year’s North Carolina team is Roy Williams’ best ever. Parrish notes that in 2004-05 Williams had one second team All-American (Sean May) and one third team All-American (Raymond Felton); in 2008-09 he had one first team All-American (Tyler Hansbrough) and one second team All-American (Ty Lawson); this year Parrish projects Harrison Barnes as a first team All-American with John Henson and Kendall Marshall coming in on the second team. While all are valid points, Hansbrough may be the best college player of the last decade, and Lawson probably deserved to make the first team until the original toe-pocalypse. Barnes is a great player with far more upside than Hansbrough, but he hasn’t shown nearly the impact at the college level; and Lawson is like Marshall on rocket fuel. That said this is all just speculation until we see the 2011-12 Tar Heels take the court next month.
Whitey 365 – Charlottesville Daily Progress: Virginia beat reporter Whitey Read was reminded of the Cavaliers’ big time choke against Miami in the ACC Tournament earlier this year Sunday night while watching Tony Romo and the Cowboys cough up their game against the Detroit Lions. For those who may not remember, the Cavaliers managed to lose a ten point lead in only 42 seconds!
Atlanta Journal Constitution: Mike Krzyzewski has his nose to the grindstone recruiting Atlanta native Tony Parker, showing up to meet the senior after he returned from his official visit to UCLA. Parker is a 6’9″ power forward that Krzyzewski has been recruiting since the ninth grade. As to his relationship with Coach K, Parker said, “We just talk about life and things like that. We’ve developed a pretty good friendship.” That sounds like good news for the Blue Devils, who certainly could use some more bulk up front.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: While Pittsburgh isn’t officially a member of the ACC until 2014 (though I suspect the Panthers will work out a deal with the Big East to move that date up a year or two), the Post-Gazette‘s Ray Fittipaldo talked about the potential advantage Pitt and Syracuse should expect in Olympic sports like women’s soccer and baseball by talking with coaches at recent Big East emigrant Boston College.
Star News Online: More to come on this later today, but Brett Friedlander looks at the ACC players who made the preseason Wooden Award watch list, noting Duke freshman Austin Rivers, Maryland sophomore Terrell Stoglin, NC State sophomore CJ Leslie and Virginia senior Mike Scott as players who may play their way onto the list as the season progresses.
Some afternoons, we’re going to do our best to point you to the developing stories and thoughtful writing from all over the ACC that has turned up during the course of the day. So without further ado, here’s your Afternoon Delight.
Barnes And Three Teammates Set Wooden Award Record
Four players from North Carolina have been named to the Wooden Award Preseason Top 50 list. Harrison Barnes, John Henson, Kendall Marshall and Tyler Zeller all made the cut for consideration of the most prestigious individual award in college basketball. Four guys picked from one school is the record in the history of the list, which is impressive for UNC, but less impressive for the rest of the conference; outside of the Carolina four, not a single other ACC player was tabbed. Who do you think should have made the cut? Matt’s got some thoughts that he’d like to share with you tomorrow.
Jeff Borzello, of course, has the recruiting scoop for this weekend. While NC State had the big score landing Rodney Purvis, Wake Forest took an important step forward after last year’s disastrous season by landing 6’6″ small forward, Arnaud Adala-Moto. Likewise, North Carolina finally closed the deal on the big 6’10” Joel James. Both are nice gets, but Adala-Moto’s recruitment is an incredible sign for the Wake Forest faithful that Jeff Bzdelik might just be able to turn this thing around.
Word leaked Tuesday night that the worst-kept current secret in college athletics will finally see the light — Texas A&Mhas been invited to formally join the SEC beginning in the 2012-13 academic year. The school plans to announce its acceptance of the invitation later today, but the question on everyone’s minds from California to New York is what happens next. Will the SEC now seek to add a 14th team like Missouri or West Virginia? Will the Big 12 quartet of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech migrate en masse to the Pac-12? Will the Big East move to swallow up Mizzou, Kansas and Kansas State? Does the Big Ten convince Maryland to jump ship? Or will the ACC raid the Big East for Syracuse, Connecticut, Rutgers and Pittsburgh? The possibilities are seemingly endless and nobody knows how all of this will eventually play out. Our conference realignment expert, Andrew Murawa, will be posting his thoughts on the myriad possibilities later this morning.
One of the more intriguing possibilities from a basketball standpoint was reported by the New York Post‘s Lenn Robbins on Tuesday. If the Big 12 implodes, the 17-team basketball version of the Big East is considering adding Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State to create a ridiculous 20-team hoops juggernaut that would include as many as 14 NCAA quality teams in a given year (last season’s 11 plus the additional three). The format would divide the 20 teams into four five-team divisions, with each team playing home-and-homes within its division and rotating games among the other teams on a yearly basis. It’s been said a million times that all of this conference realignment stuff is driven by football, but if the Big East expands as proposed here or if the ACC raids the power players in the Big East, we’re going to end up with one hell of a basketball league as a byproduct of all this madness.
Luke Winn loves his efficiency stats, and we can’t really blame him. The rise of KenPom-like statistics in college basketball has helped us more deeply understand how to measure and quantify the hidden parts of players’ games who we know are really good despite perhaps only marginal numbers when it comes to the traditional metrics of basketball performance (PPG, RPG, APG). In the first of a three-part series running this week, Winn takes a look at the top ten most valuable point guards of the efficiency era, and you might be surprised with the relatively unheralded player who ends up at the top of the list. It’ll be interesting to compare the lead guards against the other players later this week, but three of the top ten single-season performances by those players were as a part of national championship teams, lending credence to the theory that superb play at the position is almost essential to winning a title.
About that NBA lockout thing. In case you haven’t yet noticed, the NBA has now been locked out of its facilities for over two months and there are no indications of the ongoing labor problems between players and management subsiding soon. The New York Postreported on Monday that Madison Avenue firms who are accustomed to putting nearly a billion dollars worth of annual advertising into the marketplace during the NBA season are looking for other options, and college basketball (along with the NFL) might be one of those beneficiaries. Although college hoops and the NBA generally attract different fans, there are some demographic similarities: for example, both groups skew younger and male than they do among professional football fans, an extremely coveted group of eyeballs among the creative class.
It’s never too early for a preseason All-American team, and in that spirit The Sporting Newsreleased its fifteen-member group on Tuesday. Your first-teamers: UNC’s Harrison Barnes, Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger, Baylor’s Perry Jones, Connecticut’s Jeremy Lamb, and Kentucky’s Anthony Davis. That’s right — one year after Barnes was prematurely selected as the first AP preseason All-American in the history of the organization, TSN is staking its reputation on the extremely talented but oh-so-young Davis. Of course, there have been seven freshmen first-teamers in the last five years, but the hard part is picking the right one. Duke’s Austin Rivers and UConn’s Andre Drummond, for example, might end up being just as worthy as UK’s Davis.
Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.
The most anticipated season in North Carolina basketball history is approaching.
More than those Frank McGuire-coached teams in the 1950s. More than any of the best from the storied Dean Smith era, including the unforgettable Jordan/Perkins/Worthy triumvirate. Even more than when Roy Williams couldn’t resist the call of his alma mater or when Tyler Hansbrough returned for another go-round with Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington.
When two lottery picks join forces with two other first-round picks, a foundation of complementary pieces and a typically loaded recruiting class, unadulterated glee in Chapel Hill seems rather appropriate.
Navigating an unimpressive ACC this season, a far cry from its heyday as the premiere basketball league in America, renders the trek significantly less treacherous. Although he couldn’t have foreseen Harrison Barnes remaining in college more than one season, Williams knew 2011-12 would be special and challenged his team adequately in the non-conference.
John Henson’s game has grown dramatically the last two seasons
Team Outlook: Last November, it was arch-rival Duke topping the preseason rankings with Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith as seniors. One year later, the Tar Heels take their turn. Carolina’s journey from NIT to Elite Eight was aided markedly by the freshman duo of Barnes/Kendall Marshall plus the development and maturation of John Henson and Tyler Zeller. Carolina returns their entire starting lineup of Marshall, Strickland, Barnes, Zeller and Henson, adds two potential impact rookies in James McAdoo and P.J. Hairston and features enviable depth off the bench. The lesson here: rebuilding projects at renowned power programs don’t last very long. A third national title for Williams next April doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Non-Conference Schedule Rank: 8. Only five non-conference contests away from Chapel Hill, but three of the five will pose sizable challenges for the Tar Heels. The season-opening bash on an aircraft carrier in San Diego pits Carolina against a Michigan State team that, contrary to last season, we may be seriously underestimating. Tom Izzo will rely heavily on the versatile Draymond Green, rising star Keith Appling and Valparaiso transfer Brandon Wood. A Las Vegas tournament is also on the docket with a likely win vs. South Carolina preceding a possible final against UNLV in a true road game. The Rebels are pegged by most as the second-best team in the Mountain West under new coach Dave Rice behind their guard duo of Oscar Bellfield and Anthony Marshall. UNC draws rebuilding Texas and Jordan Taylor’s Wisconsin Badgers to the Dean Dome. We’d be surprised if Carolina stumbled once at home this season. Of course, the December 3 showdown with Kentucky in Lexington is the highlight of Carolina’s schedule and could be the most anticipated non-conference game in recent memory.
Cupcake City: Don’t think Williams skipped out on the buy games just because of their lofty status. Carolina faces off with UNC-Asheville, Mississippi Valley State and Tennessee State prior to their Las Vegas trip and are granted a long reprieve after the Wisconsin/Kentucky back-to-back with nine consecutive home games December 6 to January 10. Texas and two ACC duels with Boston College and Miami are mixed in with a number of cupcakes, including Nicholls State, Elon and Monmouth.
Toughest Early Season Test: Prepare yourself, North Carolina vs. Kentucky is going to receive an unprecedented amount of hype for a game in early December. That was made possible when Terrence Jones and Harrison Barnes simultaneously stunned the college basketball world and returned for their sophomore seasons. Other important cogs fell into place, and the recruiting-savvy coaching staffs securing loaded freshmen classes only exacerbated the potential. We just don’t envision a trap for either school that would deny fans a #1 vs. #2 showdown at Rupp Arena. As many as six first-round picks will lace up the sneakers in this one.
Andrew Murawa is the RTC Pac-12 and Mountain West correspondent and a frequent columnist.
It’s that time of year again. Off in the distance, it could be a mirage, or it could be the start of college basketball season. It’s probably a mirage, but the Great Sports Desert (you know, that time of year between the end of the NBA Finals and the start of college football when normal American males actually have time to get stuff done) ends Thursday, as college football kicks off its 142nd season. And given the offseason that college football has had, it couldn’t come any sooner. Unfortunately, given all the scandals and arrests and the like, according to my source at the NCAA, it appears that literally every college football player will be ineligible for the coming year (at least I assume that is true – it’s not a very good source). As a result, football programs across this great nation have been scrambling for some last minute replacements. And, since we here at RTC are nothing if not diligent, we’ve spent the last few weeks scouring college football camps across the country while other lesser outlets have been reporting on things like a little scuffle in Baton Rouge and something-or-other about Miami (I’ll admit, I never got through that whole article, but I think I got the gist of it – Miami is a nice place to go to school, right?). Anyway, since we’re the only ones who seem to be on top of this sea change in college football, we’ll let you all in on some of our wisdom as we preview college basketball’s richer, more-spoiled sibling, with RTC’s official 2011 College Football All-American team.
Offense
High School Star Aaron Craft Will Fill In Nicely for Terrelle Pryor at OSU
QB:Aaron Craft (6’2″, 190 lbs), Ohio State: In light of the Buckeye football program’s recent troubles, new head coach Luke Stickell turns the reins over to the sophomore Craft. He’s not the quickest or fleetest of foot, but he is accurate, he’s tough and he’s a leader. There has been plenty of talk about the Heisman Trophy campaign of North Carolina’s Kendall Marshall, but until he takes better care of the ball (last year, he turned the ball over on almost 30% of all possessions), we’ll give the nod to Craft, who at least has the advantage of having played QB for three years in high school.
RB:Jordan Taylor (6’1″, 195 lbs), Wisconsin: The newest Badger tailback may not have the size of former greats like Ron Dayne and John Clay, but Taylor is a tough and smart runner who excels at finding a crease and finishing through contact.
With the the NBA Draft concluded and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. The latest update comes courtesy of our ACC correspondent, Matt Patton.
Reader’s Take
Summer Storylines
New Faces: That’s right, the ACC will be totally different conference this season. Only five of the fifteen players selected as to the all-conference teams will be running the floor this season, namely four of North Carolina’s five starters (with Miami’s Malcolm Grant keeping the group from being only Tar Heels). Somewhat surprisingly, all of the ACC all-freshman squad will be back in action. Duke’s Kyrie Irving was a prominent frosh, but he didn’t play a single conference game before leaving school and UNC’s Harrison Barnes opted to return for his sophomore campaign. Keep an eye on Wake Forest’s Travis McKie and Maryland’s Terrell Stoglin especially. Both should be the stars on their respective teams.
However, the strength of the conference will rely heavily on the incoming players and coaches. Duke, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Florida State all bring in consensus top 25 classes according to ESPN, Rivals and Scout. To make a long story short, the rich get richer. Duke’s Austin Rivers (ranked 1st by Rivals, 2nd by Scout and ESPNU) will be expected to contribute immediately, while North Carolina’s James McAdoo (8th by Rivals, 4th by Scout and 5th by ESPNU) and PJ Hairston (13th by Rivals, 20th by Scout and 12th by ESPNU) should be given ample time to find roles on an already stacked team.
Arguably more important, at least in the long term, are the new coaches: NC State welcomes Mark Gottfried, Miami welcomes JimLarranaga, Maryland welcomes Mark Turgeon, and Georgia Tech welcomes Brian Gregory to the conference. The only coach I think is a surefire “upgrade” is Larranaga, who comes with some disadvantages (namely, age). While Gottfried experienced some success at Alabama, the Crimson Tide isn’t known as a basketball powerhouse and he didn’t leave the school on great terms. I also don’t think it’s a great sign that Ryan Harrow left for the bluer pastures of Kentucky. Gregory, though, sticks out as the strangest hire of the four. He had a fairly nondescript tenure at Dayton with many Flyer fans happy to see him leave. I know a tight budget hamstrung by Paul Hewitt’s hefty buyout deal probably kept the Yellow Jackets from going after the sexiest candidates, but the choice still surprised me. Gregory’s biggest disadvantage is his ugly, grind-it-out style of play that will eventually make it difficult to attract top recruits and could possibly alienate the entire GT fanbase (see: Herb Sendek).
North Carolina Navigates Investigation Waters: Finally, it may not be basketball-related, but it’s impossible to mention this offseason without discussing North Carolina’s impending date with the NCAA Committee of Infractions. The story has dominated ACC sports news. To briefly sum things up, the Tar Heels had an assistant coach, John Blake, on the payroll of an agent. If that wasn’t enough, the NCAA investigation unveiled thousands (I’m not kidding) of dollars in unpaid parking tickets and even several cases of academic fraud. The university has come out very firmly saying these infractions only involved the football team** but the scandal has gained national notoriety. (**Author’s note: the one connection with the basketball team is that Greg Little was one of UNC’s ineligible football players. Little was also a walk-on for the basketball team during the 2007-08 season, playing in ten games. North Carolina has said that his infractions occurred after his year with the basketball team, so no win vacations are in the basketball team’s future.)
Somehow, despite academic fraud, ineligible benefits and an agent runner on staff, the Tar Heels failed to get the NCAA’s most serious “lack of institutional control” violation for what appeared to be nothing less thana lack of institutional control. Again, this scandal is confined to football, but it’s one of the many recent scandals that have come to light in big time college athletics in the last couple of years (Connecticut, USC, Ohio State, Oregon, etc). These scandals could force the NCAA to augment its rules somewhat, and even though they may not directly relate to basketball, they may have a very real impact of college sports as we know it over the next few years.
Freshman phenom Austin Rivers is ready for Duke, but how quickly will 2011's top high school point guard perform on the big stage? (Orlando Sentinel)
The NBA Draft has come and gone with one of the most boring evenings in its televised history. Maybe it was the arena setting, maybe it was the lack of marquee names, maybe it was the fact that none of the draftees wore anything particularly ridiculous, but the league’s capstone summer event was so uninspiring that even Bill Simmons’ usually-hilarious draft diary felt trite and mailed in. Still, the draft represents to every major college basketball player the culmination of a lifelong dream to hear one’s name called by David Stern, and it’s worth a quick reflection on how things went last Thursday for many of the players we’ve been watching and tracking for years.
The 1-and-Dones Did Well in This Year's Draft (AP)
The 1-and-Dones. Generally speaking, the NBA Draft went well for the seven 1-and-done players who declared after their freshman season. Excluding Enes Kanter, who never played a minute at Kentucky, from the discussion, six of the seven players who left school after one season were drafted, and five of those went in the first round. Duke’s Kyrie Irving, Texas’ Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph, Kentucky’s Brandon Knight, and Tennessee’s Tobias Harris were chosen in the first thirty selections, while Kansas’ Josh Selby was taken in the next thirty picks. The lone holdout was Illinois’ Jereme Richmond, a player who clearly had a much higher opinion of himself than did NBA general managers (although if you listen to his uncle, delusions of grandeur may extend beyond Richmond to his extended family). Whether any of the others are “ready” for the NBA is an irrelevant notion in this day and age, but seeing Thompson jumping up to the #4 selection despite not being able to shoot the ball, and Joseph going at #29 despite averaging only 10.4 PPG as a “scorer” has us raising our eyebrows.
Sneaking Into the First Round... Not Exactly. We heard time and time again in April that the impetus behind numerous marginal players deciding to enter the NBA Draft this year was because players like Harrison Barnes, Jared Sullinger, Perry Jones and Terrence Jones were not coming out. The logic was that their staying in school opened up more first round spots for lesser talents, a statement certainly true in theory but in no way a sane justification for a dozen additional players to declare for the draft. Four doesn’t equal twelve the last time we checked. Interestingly, three of the four beneficiaries to earn guaranteed first round money were college seniors: Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson, Cleveland State’s Norris Cole, and Marquette’s Jimmy Butler (Texas freshman Cory Joseph was the fourth player to benefit). As for the players who came out early in an attempt to sneak into the first round of this year’s weaker draft, it didn’t really work out for them. We’re looking at second rounders like Shelvin Mack (Butler), Jordan Williams (Maryland), Trey Thompkins (Georgia), Darius Morris (Michigan), Malcolm Lee (UCLA), Travis Leslie (Georgia), DeAndre Liggins (Kentucky), and Isaiah Thomas (Washington), as well as undrafted guys like Scotty Hopson (Tennessee), Jeremy Green (Stanford), Terrence Jennings (Louisville), Greg Smith (Fresno State) and Carleton Scott (Notre Dame). What’s going to be awesome is in future years when underclassmen have roughly two weeks to gauge their draft prospects before having to commit to the draft or heading back to school — we’re sure this will result in nothing but great decisions.
In one of the more ridiculous controversies that we can remember the NCAA has apparently notified Kentucky that it was unhappy with the school’s decision to honor John Calipari for winning his 500th game on February 26th after beating Florida. Calling the ceremony “troubling”, “extremely troubling”, and “very troubling” the NCAA asserted that because Calipari’s 1996 NCAA Tournament run with UMass and the entire 2007-2008 Memphis season were vacated he actually has 42 less wins than the school claims he has. The entire debate is sort of boring on its face, but you can be sure that Wildcat fans will use it as ammunition for their claims that the NCAA is out to get their program.
The announcement by NCAA President Mark Emmert that he would be convening a retreat for around 50 college presidents to discuss the current state of the intercollegiate athletics might not generate a lot of buzz right now, but you should definitely keep an eye on it because there is a chance we could have some monumental decisions come out of that meeting. Normally I think these type of retreats are useless and essentially function as a big tax write-off, but in light of some recent proposals (particularly the discussion by the Big Ten to pay some student-athletes) and some major scandals (first at USC and now at Ohio State) the stage is certainly set for the NCAA and the universities to make a stand. Given their track record they probably won’t, but now would be a great time to start.
Dana O’Neil published a piece over the weekend about the lives of NCAA assistant coaches and the sacrifices that they have to make while trying to climb up the coaching ladder. While most of the news about basketball coaches is about the huge contracts or the NCAA violations in reality most of them are working very hard for a lot smaller sums than many would expect even if we wouldn’t claim that they are struggling to survive. It is an interesting look at their day-to-day lives and is definitely worth a read.
One of the reporters from Scout caught up with UNC point guard Kendall Marshall at Chris Paul’s CP3 Elite Guard Camp and got a pretty good interview with the rising sophomore. Outside of the usual stuff (how long it took to get over the UK loss, wanting to win a title, etc) the thing that caught our eye was that Marshall claims that Harrison Barnes has shown the most improvement of any of the UNC players over the offseason. If that is true and Barnes can come close to being as good as he was hyped as being, the Tar Heels could be even more ridiculous than we expect them to being coming into the season.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced the field and game times for its 2011 Tip-Off Tournament that will feature Kentucky, South Florida, Penn State, Old Dominion, Vermont, Long Island, Marist, and Radford. The Tournament features a pretty odd format that is built around a set of games on the weekend of November 19th-20th, but also features games during the week preceding and following that weekend. It all seems very complicated, but let us simplify it for you: Kentucky should crush all of these teams.
Who’s Got Next? is a bi-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. Twice 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 in the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.
Introduction
The DeAndre Daniels saga is finally over. After committing and then de-committing and then setting up different decision dates and not following through on them, Daniels let everyone know where he will play college basketball. Where, you may ask? Well, that may be the most surprising thing that’s happened is his whole recruitment. Class of 2012 shooting guard Rodney Purvis (#7) also spoke out on a couple of his recent visits and many other top prospects talked about their new lists. And speaking of Purvis, why will he be attending the same camp as North Carolina star Harrison Barnes this weekend? You can find out that and more in this edition of Who’s Got Next?
What They’re Saying
You Have to Think Calhoun Will Be Back Now
Senior DeAndre Daniels on why he committed to Connecticut: “I chose UConn because I thought it was the best fit for me, just their style of play, and just how they develop their wing guys. And just how he makes his guys better.” On head coach Jim Calhoun possibly returning: “[Calhoun said] I don’t have to worry about him not being there. He said he’ll be there.”
Junior Archie Goodwin (#19) on his list and when he will commit: “Kentucky, Baylor, Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, UConn, Missouri along with a lot of others including Louisville and Georgia. I’m definitely going to [sign] later.”
Junior Devonta Pollard (#40) on his offers and what he’s looking for: “Mississippi State, Georgetown, Ole Miss, North Carolina State, LSU, Alabama and Kentucky… a place where I can go and be comfortable, where I can play and be successful.”
Junior Perry Ellis (#10) on who he’s considering: “I still am considering all six teams (Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Memphis, Oklahoma, and Wichita State), as well as Duke now.”
Sophomore Malcolm Hill on his Indiana visit and the schools who are recruiting him: “They have a nice campus, it’s a good environment and I saw that they have good study habits. I really like the practice facility a lot. The other schools that are looking at me are Ohio State, Xavier, UCLA, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Providence and Tennessee.”
Sophomore standout Isaiah Lewis on what he’s looking for in a school: “The fan base… academics, that’s an important part. I want to see where coaches play me. I really want to go to college playing point guard.”
Freshman shooting guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes on his list: “Arizona, North Carolina State, Texas, Oregon and a couple of other schools.”
What Rodney Purvis is Saying
Rodney Purvis talked a lot about recent visits. (Credit: HighSchoolHoop)
