November 2012 | Page 12 of 24 | Zagsblog
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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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    • Articles, UCLA

    UCLA coach Ben Howland doesn’t know when he will learn the result of UCLA’s Friday hearing with the NCAA appeals committee regarding Shabazz Muhammad but he’s “hopeful” the star freshman will debut soon.

    The hearing ended by 1 p.m. EST Friday, the L.A. Times reported.

    “We’ll be very excited when we get him back,” Howland said Friday on a conference call in advance of the Legends Classic next week in Brooklyn involving the Bruins, No. 1 Indiana, Georgetown and Georgia.

    “We’re really looking forward to getting him back and excited. Hopefully that will occur here, so we’re just very hopeful.”

    Articles, Villanova

    NEW YORK — Villanova coach Jay Wright was so uncertain of Ryan Arcidiacono’s health entering this season, that he brought in two guard transfers just in case  the freshman couldn’t go.

    Arcidiacono, a 6-foot-3 point guard from Langhorne, Pa., missed his entire senior season at Neshaminy High School because of back surgery and it was unclear how his freshman year of college would play out.

    “I don’t think it’s a secret, we went out and got two transfers,” Wright said Thursday after his Wildcats held off Purdue, 89-81 in OT, in the semifinals of the 2K Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden thanks, in part, to Arcidiacono’s 18 points, 6 assists, 2 rebounds and 7 turnovers and two OT 3-pointers from James Bell.

    “We never take transfers because I wasn’t even sure he was going to be able to play. So we were just protecting ourselves.”

    Articles, Oregon State, St. Anthony

    NEW YORK — Oregon State junior forward Devon Collier chose to travel all the way out West from his home in The Bronx for college.

    The upside is he  enjoys Oregon State and is playing on the big stage of the Pac-12.

    The downside is that he’s some 3,000 miles away from his 4-year-old daughter, Jaliyah.

    “She should be in the stands, so I should be able to see her when I come out,” Collier told SNY.tv exclusively Thursday after putting up 21 points and 6 rebounds in Oregon State’s 65-62 loss to Alabama in the 2K Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden.

    Recruiting

    In July at the Peach Jam, Aaron Gordon told me he had a top three of Washington, Arizona and Kentucky.

    “Yes, that’s probably how it would go,” Gordon said then. “It’s all wide open right now, but that [order] would be the closest.”

    Here we are four months later and the 6-foot-9 Gordon has officially trimmed his list to those same three schools, eliminating Kansas and Oregon.

    He took official visits to all five schools, with the last coming to Kentucky this past weekend, and plans to sign in the spring.

    Articles, Recruiting, St. Benedict's

    By SEVE COUSINS

    Special to ZAGSBLOG

    NEWARK — It seems only fitting that Aquille Carr — arguably one of the country’s most exciting players — would make his debut at a new school with a new team only a few miles away from where he is verbally committed to play college ball at Seton Hall.

    Carr and his new teammates from Princeton Day Academy in Lanham, Md., made the trip to Newark to scrimmage St. Benedict’s Prep and were promptly whupped, 88-57, despite a game-best 28 points from the player they call “The Crimestopper.”

    One day after six St. Benedict’s seniors signed National Letters of Intent, Pittsburgh bound forward Mike Young led the Gray Bees with 22 points, sophomore guard Isaiah Briscoe scored 20 and Syracuse-bound point guard Tyler Ennis tallied 16.

    Articles, Kentucky, Recruiting

    Karl Towns could land on Kentucky’s campus as early as the fall of 2014.

    “It’s a done deal,” a source close to Towns’s recruiting process told BustingBrackets.com of the player’s intentions to pledge to Kentucky in his Dec. 4 announcement at St. Joe’s-Metuchen High School. “His decision has been made up and the announcement in three weeks is just a formality at this point.”

    Kentucky is certainly considered the favorite because  the 6-foot-11 Towns played for Wildcats coach John Calipari and assistant Orlando Antigua on the Dominican Republic National Team this summer, and the family has a strong bond with those coaches.

    Articles, Kentucky

    After landing the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation (again), Kentucky coach John Calipari spoke about each of his five signees.

    Below are his quotes on each player.

    Kentucky is still involved with three of the top 10 players in the Class of 2013 in Huntington (W.V.) Prep small forward Andrew Wiggins, Prestonwood Christian (Texas) Academy power forward Julius Randle and Archbishop Mitty (Calif.) power forward Aaron Gordon, all of whom will sign in the spring.

    “I really believe we’ll sign one or two more,” Calipari said on ESPNU.

    Cal on 6-5 Aaron Harrison:

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