Jalen Jenkins, a versatile 6-foot-7 small forward from Cardinal Hayes and the New Heights AAU program, has verbally committed to George Mason for 2012 but may spend a year in prep school.
“They recruited me heavily and showed me a tremendous amount of love,” Jenkins told SNY.tv. “Their campus is beautiful and I already know a player there.”
Former Christ the King guard Corey Edwards was a freshman at George Mason last season.
When the USA U18 roster was cut down to 14, Austin Nichols remained standingl.
The 6-foot-9 forward from Eads (TN) Briarcrest Christian said he’s still adjusting to the high altitude workouts in Colorado Springs, Colo., but feels honored to be wearing a “USA” jersey across his chest.
“It’s always been my dream to play for the U.S. and if I make the team that would be awesome,” Nichols said by phone from Colorado Springs. But I just have to keep putting in the work and working hard.”
Jim Boeheim, Billy Donovan and company had some difficult decisions to make when cutting the USA U18 roster from 23 to 14.
Quite a few eyebrows were raised, for example, when the highly regarded Harrison twins were cut.
“I thought everybody that was invited to try out was obviously a high-level player,” Shaka Smart, an assistant to Donovan with the U18s and the head coach at VCU, told SNY.tv Saturday by phone from Colorado Springs, Colo.
NEW YORK — Chris McCullough’s recruitment will enter a new phase this summer as he takes a number of unofficial visits and then cuts his list to five or six.
“He’s going to be cutting down the list to the top six at the end of July,” Terrance “Munch” Williams, McCullough’s coach with Team Scan, told SNY.tv after the 6-foot-9 2014 forward put up 14 points in a 75-20 rout of the Brooklyn Leaders in the U16 bracket at the Rumble in the Bronx at Baruch College.
“He’s not going to take any unofficial visits to anyone that didn’t offer.”
Shaq Stokes left the University of Hawaii to be closer to his ill grandmother and on Friday he chose his new school.
The former Lincoln High point guard will suit up at Hofstra and hopes to secure a hardship waiver to play in the 2012-13 season. He will have three years once he becomes eligible.
“It felt like the best situation for me,” the 5-foot-11, 172-pound Stokes told SNY.tv. “My family loved the visit. The coaches are an unbelievable coaching staff with great fire and passion to change the program around. It felt like Lincoln all over again walking through the doors.”
Larry Brown has been the head coach at SMU for less than two months but he’s already made huge waves in terms of turning over his roster.
In addition to essentially cutting several players from the SMU roster, Brown — the only coach to win an NBA and NCAA title — has been aggressive in landing transfers Josiah Turner (Arizona) and Crandall Head (Illinois).
SMU is also involved with 2012 late signees Savon Goodman of Philadelphia and Chris Obekpa of New York, as first reported by SNY.tv, and managed to jump in late on the Harrison twins.
Just a few months after Tilton’s Nerlens Noel reclassified to the Class of 2012, his former Tilton (N.H.) School teammate Wayne Selden is also in the process of reclassifying.
The 6-foot-4 small forward will move from 2014 to 2013.
“I believe I am physically and academically ready to go back to my original class,” Selden told ESPN.com’s Paul Biancardi, who broke the news.
“Wayne is a strong student and has enough credits to get back into his original class,” Tilton School coach Marcus O’Neil told ESPN.com. “He has adapted very well academically here at Tilton.”
