John Wall is back from his official visit to Miami and plans to cut his list later this week.
“I’m going to go home and talk about my decision,” Wall said Sunday night by phone. He added that he would cut his list to “probably two or three this Thursday or Friday.”
Wall, the 6-foot-4 point guard out of Raleigh (N.C.) Word of God, has listed Baylor, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, N.C. State, Miami, Memphis and Florida.
Kentucky desperately needs a point guard and is recruiting both Wall and Eric Bledsoe. Asked if John Calipari’s club would definitely make the cut, Wall said, “I don’t know right now. I don’t know yet. It depends. I’m looking at lots of stuff.”
Wall previously told me it was 50/50 on whether he would stay home in North Carolina at either Duke or N.C. State in order to remain near his mother, who has been ill.
As for the Miami visit, Wall said he enjoyed it.
“It was real good,” he said. “I hung out with the fellas. I went to watch the baseball game. Jack McClinton threw out the first pitch and me and the players watched them.”
Wall, who previously said he would not declare for the 2009 NBA Draft, said he could declare at any time.
“I’m just narrowing my list,” he said. “If I feel I can make a decision, I’ll just make it.”
SIDNEY CHANGING PLANS
Renardo Sidney, the 6-10, 250-pound power forward out of Los Angeles (CA) Fairfax, visited Mississippi State this weekend and could end up there or at another school other than USC.
Dave Telep of Scout reported that Sidney, a native of Mississippi, is close to formalizing a relationship with Mississippi State, but a source with knowledge said nothing was definite.
“It’s not gonna be done for a couple days,” the source said. “They [Mississippi State] are one of the two or three schools he’s still looking at.”
The source would not name the other schools.
Sidney verbally committed to USC in February but never signed a Letter of Intent. USC head coach Tim Floyd later flew to Arizona to interview for the Arizona job, but ultimately chose to remain at Southern Cal.
“It’s been a busy month over there at USC,” the source said. “He’s trying to get it all figured out.”
If Sidney leaves USC as expected he would become the second high-profile recruit to do so in recent weeks. Solomon Hill, a 6-6 small forward who orally committed to USC in the fall, recently jumped ship to Arizona.
DIXON TO WESTERN KENTUCKY
Onetime Seton Hall commit Cliff Dixon — the half-brother of NBA star Kevin Durant — committed to Western Kentucky after a weekend visit.
“They’re a good team,” Dixon told Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com. “They’ve been good for a couple of years and I just got a good vibe from the players and the coaches. Everyone’s on the same page in the program.”
Dixon said that Durant recommended Western Kentucky coach Ken McDonald.
“He said he knows how to coach, he’ll push me and is going to make me work,” Dixon said. “That’s what I want.”
TYLER DECISION CAUSING A STIR
Pete Thamel of the New York Times has been all over Jeremy Tyler’s recent decision to skip his senior year of high school and play professionally in Europe. REad his feature in Sunday’s Times.
And here are a slew of reactions to Tyler’s decision.(Photos courtesy Rivals, Hutchinson CC, NY Times)
