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.
Nick Richards added an offer from Kansas on Tuesday to go with one from UCLA.
“[Kansas assistant] Norm Roberts called Nick after school and offered him on a conference call,” St. Pat’s coach Chris Chavannes told SNY.tv. “Norm said [coach] Bill [Self] told him to offer him after seeing him in Lexington.”
The 6-foot-10 2017 big man who runs with Expressions Elite also has interest from North Carolina, Villanova and UConn, among others.
Austin Colbert, a 6-foot-9 sophomore forward from Chesapeake, Va., is going home.
Colbert will transfer to Old Dominion from Illinois and sit out next season before having two years remaining, he confirmed to SNY.tv.
“No place like home,” Colbert said by text. “They are on an upward trend and I’m blessed that they wanted me to be a part of something special. I’m prepared to play whatever role coach [Jeff] Jones and the staff see fit for me. I will sit a year and get stronger and improve my game.
Colbert averaged 1.7 points and 2.2 rebounds last year at Illinois.
John Calipari officially killed off the platoon system in a post to his CoachCal.com site on Tuesday, but did the platoon system already hurt Kentucky in recruiting the 2015 class?
“This last season these kids saw how they operated with the platoon system and kids got scared away,” one D-1 assistant coach at another school told SNY.tv.
This spring alone, Kentucky has missed out on a Who’s Who of elite recruits: Jaylen Brown (Cal), Cheick Diallo (Kansas), Brandon Ingram (Duke), Malik Newman (Mississippi State), Stephen Zimmerman (UNLV), Caleb Swanigan (Michigan State), Thomas Bryant (Indiana) and Antonio Blakeney (LSU). They also lost out on Shaun Kirk (N.C. State).
Each one of these players made his own decision as to what was best for him, and it’s unclear how much the platoon system — combined with negative recruiting from another schools about the platoon system — factored into their thinking about Kentucky.
“Recruiting is cyclical and personality-based,” a second D-1 assistant said. “Decisions to attend a school are very personal and what is good for one family isn’t the same for the next. In the case with Jaylen, he doesn’t like attention and Kentucky isn’t the place if you don’t like attention.”
INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Reese is emerging as one of the top prospects in the South. The Pelham (AL) sophomore has more points (15.5 per game) on Southeast Elite than twice the points of the second leading scorer. He also leads his team in rebounds, at 7.4 per game.
Many of Reese’s points came in transition, so he’s hoping to play for a program with an uptempo system at the next level.
“I like to run. Ideally, I’d be at a program who gets on the break and will allow me to shoot it,” he told SNY.tv in an exclusive interview.
Nick Richards added an offer from Kansas on Tuesday to go with one from UCLA.
