Wilcox, Wroten, Siva and More Monday Madness
C.J. Wilcox wrapped up his prep career, playing for the North Squad in the Feinberg Academic All-American Classic in Ontario CA on Saturday.
Though the game not a huge media event it featured some of the best college basketball prospects in the nation, including a number of players going to Pac-10 schools and from the west region who will attend prestigious D1 schools nationally.
The coach of the North All-Stars, Stephen Turner, in his fifth year as the varsity head coach at Gonzaga College High School in Washington D.C. was very complimentary of C.J.:
“CJ is a guy who can help the team at Washington immediately. His athleticism is tremendous, along with his ability to knock down the long ball. He’s going to surprise some people because he can lock guys up defensively and also because of his ability to get hands on balls in the passing lane. He has a long body and has the ability to play in multiple positions, since he can slash and get to the rim as well. He’ll be known as not just a shooter. He can play the 1 to 3 spots. He does a tremendous job in transition, finding the right guy and knowing when to pull up and take a shot. He makes good decisions.”
Here’s the link from the Utah paper:
http://preprally.heraldextra.com/content/view/1945/4/
Wilcox went 4-7 from the field with a trey, two boards and two assists, but was not mentioned in the game story from ESPN:
Oregon State signee Jared Cunningham, UCLA signees Tyler Honeycutt, Anthony Stover and Reeves Nelson and ASU signee Trent Lockett were mentioned, but Wilcox was not in the ESPN story. Maxpreps ran a huge photo gallery, but there were no pictures of Wilcox included.
Former UW football star Tony Wroten Sr. was interviewed by the Indiana Rivals site at the recent AAU event in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and spoke about what he and Tony are feeling in regards to Washington.
“I went there and played football there, so that is one of the schools that we obviously have strong ties with ands will be one of the schools that we look at. Coach (Lorenzo) Romar and his staff had a wonderful year this year and have a great recruiting class coming in. They have a lot of kids from this area that my son knows, so the University of Washington connection will be a strong one.”
Wroten Sr. was asked how his legacy at Washington will affect his son’s college choice:
“I want at the end of the day what is best for him. If that is Washington, great, but this is a long process and we’ll fight our way through it. I think my son is one of those kids that possibly will leave the home area to go somewhere else. I am not saying that is what is going to happen. He is just one of those kids that wants to do his own thing, except different.”
I wouldn’t read too much into that statement. This is a writer from Indiana trying to get something positive to frame his article with. The writer also played up the match-up between Tony Jr. and Marquis Teagues, who is likely to go to Indiana and got Wroten Sr. to say that he would like to see them play together, as if that meant that whatever school landed Teagues had an advantage with Tony Jr.:
“Both Marquis and my son are going to play on the USA team 17 & unders together. If you put both of those kids in the backcourt together, that is crazy. They complement each other. That backcourt could go up against anybody in the country, against any age. Would love to see those guys play together”
With his dad a loyal Husky, his cousin Nate Robinson, the greatest player ever from his high school Brandon Roy and other local players that he respects like Jamal Crawford and Will Conroy in his ear urging him to stay home, UW would appear to be in very good shape.
Here’s the link:
http://washington.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=944774
Peyton Siva appeared with the NY Elite in NYC in the iS8/Nike Spring High School Classic playoff quarterfinal. He was very impressive according to this report and played well against the much taller Lance Stephenson:
http://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=944649
Stephenson meanwhile is less likely to come to the Pac-10, according to yet another report on the subject from Fox’s Jeff Goodman:
http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/goodmanonfox/2009/05/11/LANCE_ARIZONA
Goodman asserts that ‘Zona signee Kevin Parrom’s report that a Stephenson visit to Tucson is in the works does not mean that the ‘Cats will take the big guard from Gotham with a bad rep.
Mike Huguenin at Rivals argues that WSU’s Ken Bone is the coach most likely to have a good start in their new D1 job this coming year:
http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=944687
Huguenin makes some excellent points, but tries to argue that the Cougs will benefit from the Pac-10 “Looks as if it will be down a bit next season”. The Cougs will have some decent puzzle pieces in Klay Thompson, Reggie Moore, Xavier Thames and Deangelo Casto, but two sophs and two frosh, regardless to the promise that those four have shown is not a real comforting advantage going into the Pac-10 wars.
Four-five returning seniors with huge experience as starters like Cal can feature or 7 of the 9 man rotation, plus the top ball control PG in the 2009 class, like Washington is something more substantial to make one confident.
ASU, UCLA, USC, Oregon State and Oregon have many more returning veterans than Wazzu. Stanford, ‘Zona and WSU are in that bottom end of the conference, but the ‘Cats should have a bit of an advantage over the Cougs.
WSU will be in a catfight to make the middle of the pack, but if Bone can do that he deserves huge credit. Here’s the link: