Posts Tagged ‘Louisville’

ESPN The Magazine Preseason Power Rankings

Published by Source on November 4th, 2011

ESPN The Magazine, along with David Hanner from RealGM.com, have used mathematical formulas and statistics (like returning players, injuries, coaching and recruit/transfer talent level. After doing the calculations, the Magazine ranked ALL 344 Division-1 basketball programs in order.

Below, we have listed the Top-10 programs according to the Magazine, plus all other local programs that you readers are here to find out more about! If you want to see the whole list, just click the link above (PDF format). Following each team is where they are projected to finish in their prospective conference.

1. North Carolina (1st ACC)

2. Kentucky (1st SEC)

3. Ohio State (1st B1G)

4. Connecticut (1st Big East)

5. Syracuse (2nd Big East)

6. Duke (2nd ACC)

7. Vanderbilt (2nd SEC)

8. Florida (3rd SEC)

9. Memphis (1st C-USA)

10. Louisville (3rd Big East)

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Posted in DePaul, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Marquette, Michigan, Michigan State, Mid Major, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
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Wayne Blackshear will miss season at Louisville

Published by Source on October 31st, 2011

Morgan Park star and current Louisville freshman Wayne Blackshear will miss the entire upcoming season due to a shoulder injury suffered in practice. According to this release from the University, an MRI revealed that Blackshear has a torn labrum which requires four months of recovery.

The Cardinals are pretty set at the wing positions, with veterans like Mike Marra and Rakeem Buckles and fellow freshman Chane Behanan and Angel Nunez. However, Blackshear certainly would have gotten a share of the minutes in this year and it is a tough blow for him having such a big setback right away.

Blackshear was a star at Morgan Park and received McDonald’s All-American honors after his senior year. He was the second highest rated Chicago prospect in the class of 2011 behind Perspectives big man Anthony Davis. He averaged 32.6 points, 14.6 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 3.7 steals in his final year with the Mustangs.

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Posted in Chicago HS Prospects
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Big East Writers Preseason Poll Results

Published by Source on October 18th, 2011

The Big East writers have spoken and their preseason conference poll results are here. 16 writers, each from a different part of Big East country, cast their votes on how the teams will finish this year, as well as selecting the conference’s top players and newcomers.

CLICK “MORE…” TO VIEW THE RESULTS!

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Posted in Chicago HS Prospects, DePaul, Marquette, Notre Dame
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Derek Willis changes visit plans

Published by Source on October 10th, 2011

2013 star big man Derek Willis will be very busy this coming weekend (Oct 14-15). Originally planning to visit Kentucky and Indiana, the Willis’ have changed their plans a bit.

The visit to Indiana on Saturday night for Hoosier Hysteria remains in the plans, but a Friday night visit to Kentucky for Big Blue Madness has been replaced with a trip to Louisville for a scrimmage. Then on Saturday before going to Bloomington, Willis and his father, Del, will head up to West Lafayette for a daytime Purdue visit.

Willis originally committed to Purdue, only to reopen his recruitment in August. Willis is a junior at Bullitt East High School in Mt. Washington, KY. Louisville and Kentucky were the early favorites as the two big hometown programs, and then Indiana jumped in soon after. It has been unclear how serious of an option Purdue still is for the 6-8 junior, but it is certainly interesting to see a visit being added this weekend.

Willis is considered a 4-star prospect by Rivals and is ranked #23 overall in his class.

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Posted in Indiana, Purdue
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Gary Harris updates

Published by Source on October 4th, 2011

Gary Harris is one of the top uncommitted players in the class of 2012. His recruitment has been a long one, with “favorites” shifting from one school to the next on a weekly basis.

Harris set up three official visits to Purdue, Indiana and Michigan State, the schools thought to be his final three options. That visit to Purdue took place this past weekend, while the Indiana (Oct. 15) and Michigan State (Nov. 5) are still forthcoming.

Last week, it was reported that Kentucky had become a serious player in Harris’ recruitment. The news today is that the Hamilton Southeastern senior star will take an official visit to Lexington on the weekend of October 22nd, in between his visits to IU and MSU.

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Posted in featured, Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue
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Top 100 recruit Nolan Berry (2013) commits to Butler

Published by Source on September 27th, 2011

Butler coach Brad Stevens landed a solid prospect on Sunday in St. Louis (DeSmet) power forward Nolan Berry. The 6’8″ Berry is the first member of Butler’s 2013 recruiting class and is ranked by Rivals as the #91 overall prospect in the class.

Despite going to back-to-back National Title games, Butler recruiting has not experienced a very noticeable upgrade in terms of prospect rankings. While they have had some top 150 prospects mixed in with mostly unranked and unheralded recruits, the Bulldogs have not landed a Top 100 commitment since  Matt Howard (#91) in 2007.

At the same time, Stevens built the program into the two-time defending runner-up with the same “unheralded” players. Guys like Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack, Ronald Nored and Shawn Vanzant were all unranked coming out of high school. It is interesting to think about what Stevens could do with a couple of more polished prospects thrown into the mix.

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Posted in featured, Mid Major, Purdue
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Louisville and Kentucky Visit Gary Harris

Published by Source on September 20th, 2011

By: Eric Gardner, Purdue contributor

Late Monday, the news came through the Twitter feeds and blogs that Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari had a surprise in-home visit with Indianapolis-native Gary Harris.  This definitely is surprising but not shocking.  One thing you can say about Kentucky is they have the ability to pull off a commitment at the last second and if you have been following the Gary Harris recruitment, you know that this is way late in the game.

In the past two weeks, Gary has had not only Kentucky but also Louisville stop by for an in-home visit.  The main players to this point have been Indiana, Purdue, and Michigan State but Gary has stated that there may be other schools that can still join in his list.  Those three main schools have all already set up official visits for the next two months.  It will be interesting to see if Louisville and/or Kentucky can score a visit, as well.  Not much has been made about the Louisville visit but from all inclinations it went okay.  Now that Kentucky got a chance to sit down with the Harris family we will just have to wait and see what comes of it in the next few weeks.

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Posted in Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue
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New Illinois commitment: Michael Orris (2012)

Published by Source on September 12th, 2011

On the same day that one Illinois target chose to play elsewhere, Head Coach Bruce Weber and staff received a commitment a different Chicago-area point guard. Michael Orris, a 6-2 PG from Crete-Monee and a former Creighton commit, pledged to the Illini on Sunday afternoon. Orris was on an official visit in Champaign this weekend and is now the first member of Weber’s 2012 recruiting class.

The final three schools for Orris were Illinois, Boston College and Nebraska, but the opportunity to play for the state school and the promixity to home tipped the scales in favor of the Illini.

Orris has the ability to score from all over the court but is characterized a pass-first true point guard. As with Chicago-land prospects and B1G targets/verbals, the Source will be on hand to watch Orris during the upcoming boys basketball season. As a junior this past season, Orris averaged 9.7 points and 6.0 assists while shooting 47% from the field (stats).

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Posted in Chicago HS Prospects, featured, Illinois, Nebraska
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Gary Harris sets visit dates

Published by Source on September 1st, 2011

Gary Harris has set the dates for his three official visits. The first visit, which was announced prior to today, will be to Purdue the weekend of October 1st. The Boilermakers host Notre Dame in football on Saturday night.

Today, according to Scout.com’s Brian Snow, Gary announced that he will visit Indiana on Saturday October 15th and Michigan State on Saturday November 5th. The Hoosiers will be on the road facing Wisconsin in football during Harris’ visit, while the football Spartans will be hosting Minnesota on the 5th.

As a football player, Harris will be making official visits on Saturday rather than Friday so as not to conflict with his own games. Per NCAA rules, he will be able to stay until Monday as part of the official visit.

Indiana usually hosts their Hoosier Hysteria event on the Friday of that weekend (October 14th this year) but have not yet announced this year’s date. It is probably fair to speculate the event will be moved back to Saturday this year.

Indiana, Purdue and Michigan State have all received 3+ commitments in the class of 2012 already, so I assume we will see some or all of those committed players joining Harris for the official visits.

Gary’s father, Gary Sr., told Rivals.com that although these are the only three visits set right now, they are not ruling out using the other two official visits allowed to high school seniors by the NCAA. Louisville and Notre Dame have long been in the discussion with Harris, but the father said that a new school, Stanford, has recently entered the picture.

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Posted in Indiana, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Purdue
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Derek Willis Opens It Up

Published by Source on August 5th, 2011

By: Eric Gardner

So things are a little messy right now but all we do know is that Derek Willis is wavering, but his Dad is not.  There lies the problem.  Earlier today Derek Willis posted on his Facebook page that he was going to “back off” his commitment to Purdue University.  Apparently he talked with his high school coach Troy Barr and told him that he wanted to decommit.  Then stories started.  Then they changed.  As reporters started getting ahold of the high school coach and Derek’s father, they found out that not even his family knew that he was going to decommit.  His father said that he hopes his son stays committed to Purdue.  He believed that the relationship with Coach Painter and Owens is solid and that he is looking forward to his son’s career as a Boilermaker.  Del Willis, Derek’s father, said that his family was going to go to the lake this weekend and talk about their next step in the process.  They should have a decision by Sunday.  Sunday can’t come soon enough for Purdue fans.

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Posted in Indiana, Purdue
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