BB Weekend Recap: Recruits, Pearl Harbor, and Shoes
By Jacob Rude
Deep breath college basketball fans. We’re in the final homestretch until the season!
Until then, we’ll spend our time watching mixtapes and highlight reels of prospects and commits. Wake Forest fans will have lots to watch after this weekend. First, they nabbed a commitment from Doral Moore, a 7-footer, for the 2015 class. On Saturday, fellow big man John Collins announced his intention to join Danny Manning and the Demon Deacons.
"John Collins, a 6-9, 230-pound power forward from West Palm Beach, committed Saturday morning to play for the Deacons.“It feels pretty good to get all that weight off,’’ Collins said by phone. “I’m pretty happy about that.’’Collins chose Wake Forest over offers from Miami, Memphis, Maryland, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas State, Georgia Tech and Alabama, giving the Deacons their second commitment of a high-profile recruit this week."
The duo will give Manning a solid building block down low for his team, and also gives Manning a great start on the 2015 class.
Elsewhere in the South, 3-star small forward E’Torrion Wilridge committed to the Bulldogs of Georgia, giving the program their second recruit for 2015.
"I would like to say that I am verbally committed to play basketball at the University of Georgia."
Wilridge joins Will Jackson, another three-star recruit, for Mark Fox’s 2015 class so far.
The biggest non-recruiting news (and maybe even including recruiting) was John Calipari and Kentucky’s much talked about combine. While the impact of Calipari’s scheme won’t necessarily be known right away, it likely made all the right noise for prospective recruits, according to Riverfront City Sports writer Matt Banks.
"He was able to get representatives from all 30 NBA teams in one spot at the same time. This is great because this type of a scene is something that these kids need to get used to. They came to UK because they wanted to be noticed. They want to have the best chance to succeed and play professionally. This type of attention is something that will be looming over them for as long as they attend the university. This may also reduce the headache of having NBA reps in and out of practice on multiple occasions going forward. Holding this big event will likely allow Calipari to focus his efforts on his team instead of who’s coming in to watch them practice."
Staying in Kentucky, Rick Pitino made waves of his own with a bit of a rant on shoe companies in college basketball. Pitino was recently snubbed by recruit Antonio Blakeney, who committed to Louisville, only to decommit some days later over athletic brands. Louisville, an Adidas-sponsored school, did not mesh with Blakeney, who plays for a Nike-sponsored AAU team.