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| Wednesday, July 16 |
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| Basketball Recruiting Buzz By Jon Reidel SchoolSports.com | ||||||
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Although women continue to close the gap in the area of equal rights in athletics, equality in some areas may not necessarily be a good thing. Take the area of college basketball recruiting, for example. Intense recruiting battles have always been waged -- some legal and some not -- on the men's side, but not until recently has recruiting in women's basketball gotten so pressure packed.
On one hand, it's good that female high school basketball players are so sought after. On the other, that means the pressure to sign early and the pressure to fill seats increases. And no one feels more pressure to make money by filling seats than the coaches, which trickles down to the players. A strong sign that the women's game is closing in on the men's in terms of high-stakes recruiting -- and the sometimes unfortunate pressure that comes with it -- can be seen in the number of female players who signed scholarships during the fall early-signing period. For one of the first times ever, more top 100 girls signed during the fall period than top 100 boys. Depending on whose list you look at, approximately 10-12 boys remain unsigned, while just four girls did not sign on the dotted line this fall. "There's no question that the girls are catching up with the boys," says Doug Herakovich, editor of the Women's Basketball Journal. "Even in women's basketball there's more and more pressure to sign early. In talking to some of the young women over the past few years, they just want to get it over with. Every recruit that slips away creates more pressure on coaches. All the evidence indicates that this trend will continue." Amazingly, the top 59 players on Herakovich's top 100 girls' list all signed in the fall. The only four players who remain are No. 60 Rochelle Bell of Champlin Park High (Brooklyn Oak , Minn.), No. 61 Tiffany Stansbury of Milford Mill High (Baltimore, Md.), No. 67 Juwanna Rivers of East Tech High (Cleveland, Ohio) and No. 86 Tan White of Tupelo High (Tupelo, Miss.). "The trend starts at top, then trickles down," says Herakovich. "There's probably between 30-35 girls in our second 100 who haven't signed yet." On the boys' side, there are still some highly recruited players available, although far less than in the past. At the top of the list is 6-foot-9 Ousmane Cisse of St. Jude High (Montgomery, Ala.), who is a consensus top five player. Other top 25 players who remain unsigned include 7-footer Tyson Chandler of Dominguez High (Compton, Calif.), 7-footer Desagana Diop of Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.), 6-foot-11 David Harrison of Brentwood Academy (Brentwood, Tenn.) and 6-foot Charles Frederick of Boca Raton High (Boca Raton, Fla.). Remaining unsigned top 100 players include 6-foot-9 Terry Licorish of Mt. Zion Christian Academy (Durham, N.C.), 6-foot-7 Vytas Danelius of Park Tudor High (Indianapolis, Ind.), 6-foot-10 Tony Key, who transferred to Centennial High (Compton, Calif.), 6-foot-5 Greg Tinch of Westover High (Albany, Ga.), 6-foot-4 Marcus Spears of Southern Lab High (Baton Rouge, La.), 6-foot-9 Brandon Bender of Ballard High (Louisville, Ky.), 6-foot-6 Ali Bierdiel of Andrean High (Gary, Ind.) and 6-foot-5 Antonio Hudson of Lab High (Grambling, La.). Players considered on the fringe of the top 100 who still haven't signed include 6-foot-7 Chris Williams of Cedar Hill High (Cedar Hill, Texas), 6-foot-4 Joshua Chambers of Berkshire High (Homestead, Fla.) and 6-foot-7 Nick DeWitz of Dobson High (Mesa, Ariz.). Another example of the trend to sign early was seen last week, when a pair of high school freshmen from Indiana made oral commitments to Purdue. That's right, 6-foot-4 Robert Vaden and 5-foot-10 Desmond Gadis, both freshmen at Cathedral High in Indianapolis, committed to the Boilermakers despite not yet having played in a high school game.
Tidbits
Material from SchoolSports.com.Visit their web site at www.schoolsports.com | |
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