More big men verbal...

[tornado]

Robert Goff was one of Indiana Universities top priorities...and IU was said to be in the lead for him, but as soon as he visited Oklahoma, he verballed there...wonder what they offered? Goff was also high on the list for Iowa State & Wichita State..and Bradley had formerly been interested..

http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/1004016.html

another guy Indiana wanted 7-footer Cheir Ajou verbals to New Mexico

http://texastech.scout.com/2/1003906.html

And 7-footer Kiel Turpin from Bloomington and Lincoln College verballed to Florida State....over offers from USC, Alabama, and others...

[tornado]

Here's a really late landing of a big man....

Dana Altman has a real personnel shortage with all the player defections.....

he just landed a 6-10 kid from Germany who is enrolled and already cleared and eligible!!

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2010/10/oregon_basketball_help_comes_f.html

http://coast2coastrecruiting.net/2010/10/ducks-go-overseas-for-help/

http://oregon.247sports.com/Article/Report-Ducks-add-European-to-roster-1958

He's pretty obscure and mentioned only a handful of times anywhere on the internet...

[tornado]

Yet another big man who is a familiar name has verballed...

Moussa Gueye, a 7-footer from Lake Land College (juco) in Matoon, IL has verballed to Alabama.

http://www.tidesports.com/article/20101005/NEWS/101009824/1011

A few schools right here in the midwest really were going hard after Gueye.....
Indiana and Valpo were after him hard but he also had offers from USC, Tennessee, Florida..also Texas & Butler interest.
He may get decent playing time right away at Alabama, depending on his skills...as Alabama has only one other guy listed as a center, a current freshman.
'Bama has been down the past few years (17-15 and 6-10 in SEC in 2009-2010, and no better the couple years beforte that)...
2005-2006 was the last season they were over .500 in the SEC..
It's basically a football school, and despite some basketball interest, they average only a little more than Bradley draws...


and although this next news in not confirmed, there's rumors that Gueye was leaning towards Indiana, but that IU may have gotten more confident of a verbal from Cody Zeller - younger brother of Tyler Zeller (UNC)...and thus Gueye got kinda tired of waiting and feeling like he was a fallback for Crean....

[tornado]

And 7-footer Kiel Turpin from Bloomington and Lincoln College verballed to Florida State....over offers from USC, Alabama, and others...

...news of Lincoln's Kiel Turpin signing with Florida State...

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/x1615398779/Lincoln-College-center-signs-with-Florida-State

Turpin plays for Lincoln College -- and is teammates of Peorians Tylon Deal, Tony Frazier, and DeMarius Summrell.

[tornado]

Moussa Gueye, a 7-footer from Lake Land College (juco) in Matoon, IL has verballed to Alabama.
....

Moussa Gueye, the 7-footer from Lake Land in Mattoon -- who was rated as the Top juco prospect in Illinois - and who got some looks from Bruce Weber & Tom Crean before finally settling on Alabama......
still has not played even one minute of one game yet this year, and is suffering from a leg/knee injury that very little has been disclosed about..
There was one report about a stress fracture of the tibia that possibly extended into the knee -- but nothing's been said about his injury since way last summer.
At some point, he may seek to redshirt, but there are other issues...and it'll need to be cleared up by NCAA...and the Clearinghouse..
Gueye had played on various teams in Senegal up thru age 20, then came to the US in spring of 2009 verbally committed already to Valpo.
He reneged on his Valpo commit, and averaged 10 ppg, 8 rpg as a freshman at Lake Land.
Because he was a spring 2009 enrollee at Lake Land, his clock may have already ticked in the 2008-2009 year thus he may not have a redshirt year left --
and when he gets to D-I (Alabama commit, now) he might also still get docked games for whatever teams he played on overseas.

[tornado]

Robert Goff was one of Indiana Universities top priorities...and IU was said to be in the lead for him, but as soon as he visited Oklahoma, he verballed there.........

Goff has played 9 games, averages 12 ppg (3rd on his team) and 6.8 rebounds per game (2nd best on his team)
His own teammate, William Nelson, a 6-6 sophomore PF, averaging 14.4 ppg, 8 rpg, who's also hitting 43% from 3-pt on 40 attempts...leads the team in all offensive categories.


BTW -- Chris Colvin (one time teammate of Marcus Jordan in HS) at Palm Beach CC is averaging 16 ppg and teammate Remy N'Diaye, an athletic 6-6 forward from Lake Forest (IL) Academy is averaging 12 ppg.

[tornado]

Goff - who had offers from several big time programs - had verballed & signed to Oklahoma but now new coach Lon Kruger has unilaterally cut ties and sent Goff packing.
Goff has been around for several years bouncing from one school to another and one juco to another -- word has it that his academic performance has finally ruined his chances.

Colvin signs with Arizona State

[Da Coach]

Goff - who had offers from several big time programs - had verballed & signed to Oklahoma but now new coach Lon Kruger has unilaterally cut ties and sent Goff packing.
Goff has been around for several years bouncing from one school to another and one juco to another -- word has it that his academic performance has finally ruined his chances.

Colvin signs with Arizona State

Robert Goff, a juco that Bradley once recruited and recently decommitted from Oklahoma, has verballed to play at Marshall.

[tornado]

Robert Goff was one of Indiana Universities top priorities...and IU was said to be in the lead for him, but as soon as he visited Oklahoma, he verballed there...wonder what they offered? Goff was also high on the list for Iowa State & Wichita State..and Bradley had formerly been interested..

http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/1004016.html

another guy Indiana wanted 7-footer Cheir Ajou verbals to New Mexico

http://texastech.scout.com/2/1003906.html

And 7-footer Kiel Turpin from Bloomington and Lincoln College verballed to Florida State....over offers from USC, Alabama, and others...

Followup-- none of these guys did much yet at the next level -

Goff was highly touted, landed at Marshall, then performed kinda poorly..6 pts, 4 rebs, and lots of fouls - led the nation in fouls per min

Cheir Ajou reportedly had such a bad year at Culver that Alford yanked the offer and Ajou reclassified as 2012 and then proceeded to have an obscure 2011-2012...

Kiel Turpin who many said was the best JUCO BIG MAN IN THE NATION - went to Florida State and never played - obviously redshirting

[tornado]

..
Cheir Ajou reportedly had such a bad year at Culver that Alford yanked the offer and Ajou reclassified as 2012 and then proceeded to have an obscure 2011-2012.....

Now that they were unable to land Mislav Brzoja - now Northwestern is trying to land Chier Ajou...who has bounced around for a couple years...
The earliest he'd be cleared for would be 2013-2014...but the guy's 7-2 so Northwestern is still taking a chance.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-nu-lands-big-man-from-south-sudan-reportedly-loul-dengs-cousin-20120615,0,191783.story

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/19376491/northwestern-hopes-ncaa-clears-eligibility-for-7-2-sudanese-center

[tornado]

Kiel Turpin who many said was the best JUCO BIG MAN IN THE NATION - went to Florida State and never played - obviously redshirting

Bloomington 7-footer Kiel Turpin was said to be the best juco big man in the nation in 2011 (for National Champion Lincoln College), and was the NJCAA (DII) Championship MVC as well as getting plenty of notice as Player of the Year, and went to Florida State...

His first year there he redshirted, then in 2012-13 he played sparingly as a sub, and averaged 5 ppg

Then this would have been his redshirt-senior season but nagging knee problems kept him from playing even one minute all year...so he might now end his thus-far disappointing Division I career with only 180 career points scored - now that Florida State's playing season is done with their semi-final loss last night in the NIT.
But there's rumor he may get one of the rare Sam-Singh-like 6th year waivers and might be able to return again and play next season if his knee recovers.


Of the other big men mentioned above - Goff went to Marshall and barely had any impact at all - he must have been very overrated. He averaged 5 ppg over 2 seasons.

Ajou had his offer from New Mexico withdrawn then went to Northwestern - never played there and has now left and is at Seton Hall - still having never played

Moussa Gueye flopped at Alabama then came back and had a marginal to decent finish at Valpo,
16 minutes per game, 4.5 ppg, 4.9 rpg, but finished 2nd in the nation in fouls per minute played behind XT.

If anything can be learned from all these highly touted big men is that almost all of them aimed way too high and would have been far better off going mid-major but that's what a lot of people have been saying for years about these guys....

[mvcfan]

I had forgot about Turpin until last night watching FSU. Had to make me think what had happened to him.

[tornado]

What will make it even tougher on Turpin if he decides to return at Florida State is that one of their young big men, Boris Bojanovsky, who didn't do much at all last year and maybe wasn't even counted on to do much this year - actually ended up having a pretty impressive sophomore season...
He is 7-3, has a huge impact defensively on their opponents in the paint, and averaged 6ppg, 4 rpg but came on strong later in the season, started more than half the games, and almost surely will start at center next year, taking a big hunk of what playing time the oft-injured Turpin might scrap for.
Since he's already completed 5 years of college - look for Turpin to consider a transfer if he's close to graduating and can get it done this summer.

[tornado]

Lincoln College's & Normal, IL West HS's big man, Kiel Turpin gets a 6th year of eligibility granted by the NCAA...a la Sam Singh & Will Egolf....and appears he will stay at Florida State...
If he were to transfer - he'd have the opportunity for a whole lot more playing time some places than the time he might get there...

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/graybeard-turpin-gets-sixth-year-at-florida-state/article_fb6d4083-2995-5e08-829b-d3b426ab1671.html

Creighton's Grant Gibbs also got a 6th year