Posts Tagged ‘Rick Pitino’

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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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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B1G / Chicago Recruiting Tidbits – Friday 9/16

Published by Source on September 16th, 2011

Every Friday we will release a list of small recruiting news “nuggets” or “tidbits” they deserve mention on this site but do not necessarily require full articles. Here is this Friday’s edition of Recruiting Tidbits:

* DePaul has added a late member to its 2011 recruiting class in JUCO point guard Worrell Clahar. The 6-foot junior comes to Chicago from Lawson State CC (Alabama) and will have 2 years of eligibility with the Blue Demons. The commitment actually happened over Labor Day weekend, but got lost in the shuffle by yours truly. Apologies on that one!

* Chicago’s Simeon Career Academy was the place to be for college coaches on Wednesday night as all eyes were on 2013 star Jabari Parker. In the house to see Parker were head coaches and/or assistants from over 20 D1 schools, headlined by Mike Krzyzewski (plus 2 Duke assistants), Tom Izzo, Roy Williams, Thad Matta (plus assistant), Bill Self (plus assistant), Bruce Weber (plus assistant), Oliver Purnell and Larry Krystkowiak (Utah). Several other local schools were represented, including Chicago State, UIC, Valpo, Illinois State and Northern Illinois. The workout also featured Marquette commit and Steve Taylor (2012) and Texas A&M verbal Kendrick Nunn (2013).

* Indiana commitment Peter Jurkin (2012) has been out of basketball for most of the last year with a stress fracture in his leg. Inside The Hall is reporting that Jurkin is now back at full strength after missing most of his junior season and the entire AAU evaluation period.

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Posted in Chicago HS Prospects, DePaul, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Mid Major, Ohio 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 and Indiana’s scholarship situation

Published by Source on September 2nd, 2011

By: Kyle Dunne, Indiana contributor

Gary Harris is one of the few highly ranked, unsigned recruits remaining from the state of Indiana for the class of 2012. By numerous accounts, the 6’6’’ shooting guard’s top three schools consist of Indiana, Purdue and Michigan State. With many of his friends already committed to play for the Hoosiers, as well as Bloomington’s close proximity to his hometown of Fishers, it may be very hard for Harris to turn down the opportunity to play for Tom Crean. However, because of the already clouded scholarship situation, a Harris commitment to Indiana could make things complicated in Bloomington.

Assuming Matt Roth does not use his 5th year of eligibility at Indiana, two additional current Indiana players or committed players through the class of 2012 would need to vacate their scholarships for the 2012-2013 season. This could be accomplished through transfers, early entries into the NBA draft, a player offering to give up their scholarship and pay for their school or a player in the 2012 class reclassifying.

If Harris does commit to Indiana, only five of the Hoosiers’ 2012 recruiting class would be able to sign their letters of intent in November. While it is not my intention to speculate on which current players will or will not be with the team at this point next year, it is intriguing to look at the different scenarios. (more…)

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Posted in featured, Indiana, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Purdue
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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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