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Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
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Wednesday / December 25.
  • When the Pittsburgh men’s basketball team starts practice next week to defend its Big East tournament championship, Levance Fields, the heart and soul of the Panthers, will have to watch from the sideline.

    Fields, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound senior point guard from Brooklyn, is still rehabilitating the left foot he broke against Dayton last December. Fields returned to action Feb. 15 against Marquette, but he still had surgery in August. After that procedure, Fields contracted an infection above his foot that slowed his recovery. The bone is still healing, and Fields hasn’t been able to participate in individual workouts or pickup games the way his teammates have. He is expected to be ready in time for the start of the regular season in November.

    Read the full story at SNY.tv here.

    Meanwhile, in other Big East news, Georgetown got a commitment from Nate Lubick, a 6-8, 227-pound junior PF from Southborough (MA) St. Mark’s, according to Jeff Goodman. Goodman reports that Georgetown hasn’t had an American-born white player in four years.

    One day after ZAGSBLOG broke the news that Dominic Cheek had cut his list of colleges and was planning visits, we have an update on the order of those visits.

    The 6-foot-5 Cheek, a senior at St. Anthony in Jersey City, will visit Kansas, Villanova and Memphis over three successive weekends later this month. No visit dates have yet been set for Pittsburgh or Indiana, the other two schools in Cheek’s top five.

    Cheek eliminated UConn, Wake Forest and Tennessee from his list, but is still considering Rutgers and Seton Hall. He has visited both schools unofficially.

    Tim Thomas, the most famous alumnus ever to come out of Paterson Catholic High School, has pulled his nephew out of his alma mater.

    Shaquille “Shaq” Thomas, a 6-foot-6 junior wing who may be close to committing to Syracuse, is transferring to Montclair High School. Thomas lives in Montclair with Dorothy Thomas, Tim’s mother and Shaq’s grandmother. It was Dorothy who signed Shaq out of Paterson Catholic on Wednesday and returned all his books.

    “He hasn’t committed (to Syracuse) yet. He really loves Syracuse and all of that and it’s going to be his own decision, but he is leaving Paterson Catholic. That’s a definite. He’s going to Montclair High School,” said Tim Thomas, the Los Angeles Clippers star who led Paterson Catholic to the New Jersey Tournament of Champions in 1994.

    Ryan Kelly, a 6-foot-10 forward from Raleigh (NC) Ravenscroft School, will announce his college choice Thursday at 6:30 p.m. on ESPNU’s Recruiting Insider.

    Kelly will decide between Notre Dame, Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt and Georgetown and Ravenscroft coach Kevin Billerman, a New Jersey native, says he doesn’t know if Kelly has decided yet.

    “We had a meeting on Sunday and we talked about all the schools, he and I and his parents,” Billerman said Wednesday. “He’s taking a couple of days to decide what he wants to do and then he’s going to start calling the coaches because I gather he hasn’t decided yet.”

    Dominic Cheek, the immensely talented 6-foot-5 wing from St. Anthony of Jersey City, has narrowed his list of colleges and begun to plan his visits.

    I just got off the phone with St. Anthony associate head coach Ben Gamble and here’s the deal: Wake Forest , Tennessee and UConn have been eliminated from Cheek’s list.

    He plans to visit Kansas, Memphis, Indiana, Villanova and Pittsburgh, and Seton Hall and Rutgers are still in the mix for potential unofficial visits.

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