BU Recruit Followup

[tornado]

I don't know about everyone else, but I always like to check on the kids that BU missed out on, the recruits we thought we had but them didn't get.

I will use this thread to offer some followup......
One that I have been waiting two full years to see how he does when he gets to college is Manual Cass. Bradley was so close to landing Cass, that the PJ Star even ran a story saying Cass had committed to BU, but as it turned out, Cass changed his mind, and verballed to DePaul, then it was revealed DePaul's coach has violated no-contact rules in landing Cass.
In the end, Cass reneged on his verbal to DePaul as well and went to a year of prep school, and is now at UTEP.

Last night, Manual Cass had his first D-I experience...
UTEP played Western New Mexico in an exhibition and won by 51, 97-46.
Two freshmen led UTEP with 15 points, Randy Culpepper & Julyan Stone.
Cass played 19 minutes (only one player who logged 20 min played more), about as much as anyone on UTEP.
I suspect Cass would like to have done better, but his team won anyway.
Cass was 0-for-5 from the floor, 0-2 from 3-pt range, and grabbed 5 rebs.
TEN different UTEP players scored 5 or more, so Manual was far from being in the top scorers.
Also seven grabbed 5 or more rebounds as well.
Some of the comments from people on the UTEP boards hint he may have been a little tight and forced some shots. With as many new players & good, young frontcourt players as UTEP has (seven freshmen and SIX juco transfers), Cass has a battle on his hands for playing time.

[tornado]

Here's another followup I am sure everyone wants to hear.

Daniel West is one of 30 players from Michigan in the Class of 2008 who has been nominated for the McDonalds All American Game

http://bankhoops.com/

The writer of Bankhoops.com, and publisher of Michiganpreps is Steve Bell, one of the most knowledgable guy in Michigan high school basketball.

http://www.mlive.com/weblogs/hsbasketball/?aboutauthor

He has rated the players in Michigan's Clsss of 2008

Point guards:

1. Anthony Crater 6-2 Flint Southwestern Ohio State
2. Brad Redford 6-0 Frankenmuth Xavier
3. Eric Evans 5-10 Detroit Northwestern
4. Dominique Buckley 6-2 Romulus Iowa State
5. Daniel West 6-2 Saginaw Bradley

Here also is some message board discussion on Daniel West

http://www.bankhoops.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5453

West is in his senior year at Saginaw HS, coming off a state championship and ranked in the Top 5 in the State's preseason rankings.

Here are a few juicy quotes from the message board talk:

"Come on people read between the lines. D. West once he got the publics EYE he started to think that he was better than Bradley. This is what I heard and what I think. He got out of the commitment the right way by turning the school away. Come on if UT and UofL is considering looking at West that tells something. I say in March he will commit to one of the two choices."

"West??™s junior year in the classroom placed him in a tenuous position as far as achieving his NCAA eligibility."
"So his agreement to Bradley was voided and BU filled West??™s scholarship"

[ACBL]

What has become of two other California junior college kids BU was recruiting.
BJ Visman from Yuba and Andre Gilbert from San Jacinto?

[Da Coach]

B.J. Visman was a 2006 Yuba grad. He went to University of California Riverside. He got injured and redshirted last season. But he is healthy and will be a junior this year. UC-Riverside lost their first exhibition last night 67-61 to UC San Diego, a Division II school.
Visman played 16 minutes as a reserve for UC Riverside, and scored 2 points on 1-4 shooting.--

http://www.athletics.ucr.edu/mbasketball/mbkplayerpages/vismanbio.html

Andre Gilbert was a 2007 grad of Mt. San Jacinto College in California. He signed with Kansas State, and is on their active roster for this season. Kansas St.'s first exhibition is tonight.--

http://www.kstatesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=3087&SPID=213&DB_OEM_ID=400&ATCLID=1287660&Q_SEASON=2007

[Da Coach]

Here is another kid that just barely slipped away from Jim Les-- Courtney Lee. He is a 6'5" guard from Indianapolis Pike HS who almost committed to Bradley, then went to Western Kentucky. He will be a senior this season and will get consideration for All American. He scored 27 points and had 6 steals in 26 minutes of play in an exhibition Thursday night. He averaged 17.3 ppg last season, and shot 47.2% overall and 40.1% from 3. It would have been nice to see him in a Bradley uniform these past 3 years.

http://www.wkusports.com/news.cgi?article=5820&sports=1

http://www.wkusports.com/profile.cgi?profile=1507

[tornado]

Here's what I know.
While BJ Visman was still at Yuba College (playing for Coach Doug Cornelius), he was being recruited by several schools but he wanted to stay real close to home and was leaning toward UC-Davis. But he changed his mind and ended up going to UC-Riverside.
Then just before the season started he was involved in a very severe car accident and suffered serious injuries.
He tried to play in the 2006-2007 season, played in 5 games and started two, but after that, he re-injured his wrist and couldn't play, so he redshirted the 2006-2007 season. Hopefully he is now ready to play this season. He still has two years of eligibility.

By the way, in that Sept. 17, 2006 accident, BJ saved the life of two of his friends by pulling them to safety, but sadly two of BJ's close friends Mark Hall and Latosha Wallace died in the accident.

http://www.highlanderforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=321&sid=9c56499c818dfeadcedb55c783319e85

As for Andre Gilbert...he ended up at Kansas State. He is a 6-7 version of Theron Wilson, a guy who can get double doubles.
But, alas, Senior starter David Hoskins, and superstars Bill Walker and Michael Beasley all also play pretty much the same position.
Since all three of them may be gone next year either graduated or to the NBA, his best shot at playing time will be next year, his senior year.
They play their first open exhibition game tonight against Ft. Hays.


Here are a couple other juco names I ran across that some will recall, as BU was after them at one time.

Monquel Pegues...once we got David Collins, our interest dropped off with Pegues, and he ended up at New Mexico, as Stave Alford had a bunch of open scholarships to give.
Pegues, a 6-10 PF, played his first action in their exhibition game last night.
New Mexico beat Eastern New Mexico (DII) 94-50, and Pegues played 14 minutes, was 0-5, but did score 2 pts on a couple FTs.
Viewer comments on their message boards said that Pegues still was a good possibility to continue getting time at center, since the Lobos are weak there, but noted he didn't have the ability "to finish well", which I take to mean he can't shoot a lick.


Cassin Diggs was also on BU's radar, and ended up at Pitt.
In their first exhibition he got some playing time (12 min) as a backup and scored 5 pts/2 rebs in Pitt's win over Pitt-Johnstown. He won't get any playing time there and will find out all too late that he's their backup option.

Cole-Scott's teammate last year Delbert Simpson ended up at Baylor, who just lost their first exhibition in embarrassing fashion 95-85 to Tarleton State.
Delbert got 11 minutes but didn't score. He apparently did not play well.

Steffphon Pettigrew ended up at Western Ky. who just whalloped Campbellsville 94-67 in an exhibition. Ex-BU recruit Courtney Lee got 27 points in 26 minutes, Steffphon get 15 minutes and had 7 pts.

Mareceo Rutledge went to UNLV....they have yet to play an exhibition.

Marcus Sikes is at Cincy. He had a good year last year but is now coming off the bench. In Cincy's exhibition win over a DeAaron-less Northern Kentucky squad (76-71), coach Mick Cronin had to stick with the starters a bunch and Marcus (who rumor has it is in the coach's doghouse) got only 17 minutes in a sub role and scored 4.

[Da Coach]

One more from last year's recruiting--

This will be the first season in several years that Bradley's roster will not include a former Yuba College player (lawrence Wright and Zach Andrews).
But Jim Les did recruit Yuba forward Demetrius Young, who originally committed to Marshall University, but when they fired their coach he decommitted and switched to Stony Brook University on Long Island in New York.
He is a junior on their roster, and they will play their first game Nov. 9 at Villanova. Stony Brook has another incoming junior college player this year named Michael Tyree, who was a juco teammate of Theron Wilson at Seward County CC.

http://goseawolves.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/ston-m-baskbl-mtt.html

[Da Coach]

What has become of two other California junior college kids BU was recruiting.
BJ Visman from Yuba and Andre Gilbert from San Jacinto?

Kansas State played an exhibition against Fort Hays State and won 95-59.
Bill Walker coming off a serious knee injury that prematurely ended his season last year scored 19 points in 25 minutes.
Freshman Michael Beasley, who some rated as the #1 player in the class of 2007, scored 35 points and had 15 rebounds in 28 minutes.

http://www.kstatesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=3086&SPID=213&DB_OEM_ID=400&ATCLID=1302108

http://www.kstatesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=3084&SPID=213&DB_OEM_ID=400&ATCLID=1302120

Andre Gilbert, who BU was very active in trying to recruit (just before Theron Wilson committed)
played 22 minutes in that blowout exhibition for K-State and was 1-3 and 3 points/2 rebounds

[Da Coach]

Roy Bright is now a senior at Delaware State. He was picked as the MEAC conference preseason Player of the Year.

Tonight (Friday) he scored 28 points in DSU's 77-44 win over Allen.

Attendance at Delaware State was an unbelieveable 130!

[BUBrave28]

T, you mentioned a DeAaron-less NKU team vs. Kentucky. I was just wondering if Kyle Julius played in that game or not? Not a bad showing by NKU even though I know Cincy isn't a shadow of their former selves. Another note is that DeAaron will be eligible to play 2nd semester if he can take care of a few credits this semester from what I was told(we've heard this before, hopefully he does it this time). Unfortunately I think a lot of these guys who don't excel in school, or even care, have noticed others going overseas and making some decent money playing ball. I know it led to the early departure of TJ Parker from Northwestern a few years ago, and I personally know a few players who are trying to go this route after bouncing around from college to college with disciplinary and/or grade problems.

[tornado]

I also talked to a couple of the ICC players and they say DeAaron is still at Northern Kentucky trying to get eligible.
I also have heard he may be able to play by 2nd semester.

In the NKU game vs. Cincy, neither DeAaron nor Kyle Julius played

http://gobearcats.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2007-2008/cin-nku.html#GAME.BOX

Ex-BU recruit Marcus Sikes logged 17 minutes and had 4 pts, 3 rebs. for Cincy.

[Da Coach]

Stonybrook lost at home tonight (Monday 11/12) to Lafayette 76-68 in Stonybrook's home opener. Attendance was a whopping 732 at Stonybrook's arena.

Former Yuba player Demetrius Young, who was once a BU recruit, now plays for Stonybrook. He played 29 minutes and had 6 points and 7 rebounds.
In Stonybrook's first game, Young had 3 points and 2 rebounds.

Young could have been playing in front of 10,000 fans at Carver arena, instead of a couple hundred at Stonybrook.

[Da Coach]

Dwight Buycks had a team-high 21 points in Indian Hills CC's recent win

http://www.ottumwacourier.com/sports/local_story_317233421.html?keyword=topstory

[BradleyBrave]

Dwight Buycks had a team-high 21 points in Indian Hills CC's recent win

http://www.ottumwacourier.com/sports...yword=topstory

No way Buycks ends up at BU. He'll be a high major loss for sure. I'm not sure that wasn't his plan all along.

[collegehoopjunkie]

I don't know about everyone else, but I always like to check on the kids that BU missed out on, the recruits we thought we had but them didn't get.

I will use this thread to offer some followup......
One that I have been waiting two full years to see how he does when he gets to college is Manual Cass. Bradley was so close to landing Cass, that the PJ Star even ran a story saying Cass had committed to BU, but as it turned out, Cass changed his mind, and verballed to DePaul, then it was revealed DePaul's coach has violated no-contact rules in landing Cass.
In the end, Cass reneged on his verbal to DePaul as well and went to a year of prep school, and is now at UTEP.

Last night, Manual Cass had his first D-I experience...
UTEP played Western New Mexico in an exhibition and won by 51, 97-46.
Two freshmen led UTEP with 15 points, Randy Culpepper & Julyan Stone.
Cass played 19 minutes (only one player who logged 20 min played more), about as much as anyone on UTEP.
I suspect Cass would like to have done better, but his team won anyway.
Cass was 0-for-5 from the floor, 0-2 from 3-pt range, and grabbed 5 rebs.
TEN different UTEP players scored 5 or more, so Manual was far from being in the top scorers.
Also seven grabbed 5 or more rebounds as well.
Some of the comments from people on the UTEP boards hint he may have been a little tight and forced some shots. With as many new players & good, young frontcourt players as UTEP has (seven freshmen and SIX juco transfers), Cass has a battle on his hands for playing time.

So, Manual Cass is at a midmajor? Wow, that surprises me since he changed his mind so many times in an effort to land at some top school.

I recall he had wanted at one point to go to Bradley before his senior year at Carbondale. Then he changed his mind and verballed to DePaul, later signing a letter of intent.
Then he changed his mind about playing for Carbondale and walked out on his own high school team. Then we heard he was going to return to Carbondale, but changed his mind and went to Boys to Men, changing his mind again after a couple games with them and quitting that team too. Then he changed his mind again and decided not to even play the rest of his senior year and then he went to a prep school out east.
In the end, he lands at Texas-El Paso.
Let's see-
DePaul has sent over 30 players to the NBA
Bradley has sent over 20 players to the NBA
UTEP has sent 10 players to the NBA
He shouldn't have changed his mind so much.