Let's start talking recruits for the next couple years!

Here's a listing of all the players that each Valley team will be bringing in next year.
I have far further details and links to other pages on each player but will be adding that info later.

BU
2012 - Ka'Darryl Bell, Tyshon Pickett, up next...Mislav Brzjoa (see below)

CU
2102 Andre Yates, Isaiah Zierden, Tevin Calhoun

DU
2012 Richard Carter, Micah Mason, Joey King

UE
2012 Adam Wing, DJ Balentine

ISU
2012 Aaron Simpson, Anthony Beane

InSU
2012 TJ Bell, Rhett Smith, Mike Samuels

MSU
2012 Marcus Marshall, DeQuan Hicks, Bruce Marshall, Gavin Thurman

UNI

SIU
2012 Desmar Jackson (transfer from Wyoming), Bobo Drummond, Travis Wilkins

WSU
2012 Fred Van Vleet, Henry Uwadiae, Cleanthony Early, Deontae Hawkins (? not signed?), Derail Green
(one good, legitimate site detailing that Providence is also after Deontae Hawkins states that he is not signed and maybe not even strongly committed to Wichita)
http://providence.scout.com/2/376093.html

2013 Earl Watson



Here's an update on Bradley's guys...
Tyshon Pickett didn't play, his team is getting ready for their Regional juco tourney.
They play Wednesday at Kansas City CC.

Ka'Darryl Bell and his Oak Park River Forest Huskies won their Regional Title..
their first since 2008...

The Huskies overcame a slow start with a strong defensive effort and beat Morton HS (Cicero), 56-46 Friday night. They will play Schaumburg on its home floor in the sectional semifinals at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Ka'Darryl Bell had 6 pts, 10 rebs 6 asst.



UC-Davis now goes on to play in their Big West Tourney - facing Long Beach State on March 8 in their tourney.



Coach Jim Molinari and his WIU Leathernecks play in the Summit semi's vs ORU tonight!
Go MO!!



Here's a good summary of all the best kids - ranked to 100 - that have come out of Illinois high schools since 2003.
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/high-school/post/_/id/2649/top-100-hits-misses-of-illinois-depaul

Of course you can't hardly argue with those ranked at the top like Derrick Rose, Anthony Davis, Shaun Livingston, etc...
..but I am puzzled as to how Jereme Richmond gets in at #13 ahead of Jacob Pullen, John Shurna....when Richmond was a flop and didn't even show enough in high school to deserve this ranking.
I am also surprised at Koshwal in the Top 25 ahead of many more talented kids.

Sam Maniscalco is on the list as is Osiris...
and a lot of big time flops like Nate Minnoy and Brian Carlwell - yet fine players who completed great college careers like Jeremy Crouch and Dodie Dunson don't get a mention.



As for who Bradley is targeting - we all know at least one or two scholarships will open up and our coaching staff will try to fill them.

There's talk of a couple prep school kids - the name above is currently the one showing most interest in BU and may commit once the scholarship opens.

I have made my feelings known on the bulk of the prep school kids in the midwest....most aim too high!

I hope we are NOT banking everything on just one or two of the Indiana prep school kids...I hope we're looking at solid juco talent as well and a few names have been noted.

As I am sure you may have seen my other comments - I have a long held opinion that almost ALL of the midwest prep kids are overrated...and have been from the word GO.

They play on hand-picked prep school teams that play mostly other regular high schools and thus the depth of their hand picked talent means they win all the time and look way, way better than they are...

As I have said -- I have been tracking the careers of all those kids from Boys to Men, Decatur Christian, Brehm Prep, Culver Academy, La Lumiere, etc....
All those schools and coaches went out and RECRUITED the best kids who were already on target to be good players and probably stars in college....
SO even without knowing anything you'd certainly expect plenty of those prep kids to have already proven their talent with GREAT college careers.

YET once they play a year or two at any of those prep schools, their talent seems to dry up...we simply have NOT seen what would be expected.

Where are all those studs that were rated 4-Star and 5-Star at Boys to Men, etc???
Leon Freeman, Xavier Crawford, Clay Holloway, Jelani Poston, Elijah Dildy, Angel Garcia, Jesse Childs, Beas Hamga, Darrington Hobson, Demario Wade, Mario Stula...

All of these kids were at one time up there rated highly, 4-STAR and even 5-STAR!!!

Not one had much impact in college anywhere...and the same has been a pattern since the day BTMA opened up.

(BTW - one example - despite all the hype at prep schools - Jelani Poston finally finished up his college career with a grand total of 56 total career points in a few games at lowly UIC!!!)

The few of them who got out quickly and went somewhere else like Craig Brackins - actually did go on and do well in college but had he stayed at Boys to Men he would have gotten worse for sure..and he was good but not good enough to get Iowa State out of the basement or keep McDermott from getting run out at Iowa State.

Another example - Everyone said Mac Koshwal had NBA talent...
He put up fairly good numbers at DePaul but it's because he was all they had and he played 38 minutes...
then he's struggling to even be average over in Europe...
He played 25 games with a Spanish team that wasn't even in the top pro division - they were in the LEB Gold....and averaged a whopping 7 pts, 4 rebs per game
His contract was NOT even renewed!!!
Where is he now??

Remember James Siakam -- highly touted from Brehm Prep - and some had him inside their TOP-3 players in Illinois in 2010...and also the kid Bruce Barron (2011) -- both went D-I and Barron was kinda worthless at Oregon and is gone now - Siakam even after a whole redshirt year at Vandy still can't even get but 1-2 minutes per game occasionally in garbage time.
http://www.vucommodores.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2011-2012/teamcume.html


I know part of the problem is they always aim too high - so when they go DePaul, Big East, Big Ten, even Pac-10 - of course they flop...
so maybe we'd have a decent player at the MVC level if that's what they choose, time will tell...
- But I am still waiting for someone to give me even one solid example of ANY of those prep schools producing a DIFFERENCE-MAKER or even a solid starter yet in the 6-7 years we've been tracking the kids from all those mid-western prep schools.

Even the IMG players have yet to impress much...remember Andrew Davis and Shayok were both IMG...
Again -- overrated and they play the typical undisciplined prep-school and AAU style and are wild and hard to coach into a good team philosophy.

(pps - I know there's a few solid D-I kids currently at La Lumiere - but most all of them were committed before they went there (Bobo, Perea, Davis)...let's hope their careers haven't been hurt in the time they've been at La Lumiere like many of the kids before them.
I can name plenty more but it is not my intent to disparage the kids who really are doing the best they can but are getting sub-par guidance and sub-par coaching.

As I have said - even random, decent schools like Whitney Young, Simeon, Manual, etc., have regularly produced many, many more and better D-I players than these prep schools.

I think the kids get their heads filled with hype and think they're better than they are, they develop lazy work ethics (remember Beas Hamga - a 5-STAR sure one-and-done that came out of Decatur Christian?) and they are NOT that well coached....
In fact - some of those prep schools have totally horrible coaches.....if the best players out of Brehm Prep can't even get 1 minute per game of playing time at average D-I schools (we're not talking Duke, here).

Remember "Dre Henley"?? (Andre Henley) rated by many as top-10 in Illinois then went to Brehm then to NIU (and everyone said he was a GREAT GET for NIU!) and flopped so badly that they sent him packing and he's never been heard from since.

One of the other really top kids at Brehm signed with Arkansas State - ought to be a star there, right??
Nope - Rakeem Dickerson -
they have nobody else so they even start the kid and gets just 3 ppg on 30% shooting
http://www.kfvs12.com/story/14527235/brehm-prep-school-basketball-player-signing-on-with-arkansas-state
http://www.astateredwolves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=7200&ATCLID=205347379
http://www.astateredwolves.com//pdf8/830477.pdf

So -- final lesson to those prep school kids........do not aim too high like so many of your counterparts.
Go midmajor - then you'll have a chance to be a solid contributor and maybe even a starter.