Announcement

**tornado** · 01-08-2007, 08:51 AM

This kid had committed to USC last summer, then decommitted
when USC went for OJ Mayo.

The kid committed Saturday night, and this was reported
yesterday by Rivals, and was talked about on the Illinois
message boards starting Sunday morning.
Then other newspapaers have this story posted this morning, BUT....
Neither the Champaign papers nor the Peoria paper have anything about the kid or his committment.

Never the less, Watkins is a fine player despite the lack of
other top schools pursuing him (Washington State, Nevada,
Utah, Nebraska, San Diego State, Pepperdine, and New Mexico).
This is mostly because of his early committment to USC, and all
the other big guys backed off. When he reopened his
recruiting last fall, a lot of schools were out of 2007
scholarships or were late getting in to recruit Watkins.

Here is a comment from one recruiting expert:
".....scoring well, has the ability to get to the rack.
He is a nice shooter, very quick and a good athlete. He will play
early. Similar player to Luther Head coming out of HS. If he was
in Chicago he would be hyped to the hilt. Left handed, can play
the 2 or 3, 6'3" or 6'4".

Most people didn't evaluate him last summer because he was a
USC commit. After he decommitted it was almost all west coast
teams. Problem was that AZ and UCLA were full. Washington
had been on him hard the last month, and Missouri and Miami
had begun to call in the last month as well. Illinois wanted to
get him to commit now because he would have ended up at
UCLA or AZ if they lost guys this spring and needed a
replacement."

I find it odd that the kid has not visited Illinois, but he was
listed by Rivals as the TOP shooting guard in the NATION that
had yet to commit for 2007.
Good get for the Illini with a scholarship they were holding in
their pocket. Some have compared the kid to Patrick Beverley.

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http://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?SID=910&CID=616694