SEC Reels In Its Share Of Prep Prospects
Did Kentucky Land The Biggest Prize?
The early results are in, and the winner is. . .Kentucky?
Could be, when talking about the early recruiting window for NCAA basketball teams, within the Southeastern Conference.
The 10-team league hauled in a total of 15 players, and 6-4 (or is he 6-3 or 6-5?) Rex Chapman is the most highly regarded individual recruit landed by any of the teams. Of course, the Apollo High star from Owensboro is staying home to play at UK.
Chapman, rated the top guard prospect in the country by many of the so-called recruiting gurus, or experts, is ranked as high as number three in the country (Bob Gibbons), no worse than number four guard (depends on who you listen'to). Along with promising 6-7 Reggie Hanson. Chapman gives first-year coach Eddie Sutton his first UK recruiting class.
Jim Griesch
Cats' Pause Columnist
If you judge the success of recruiting by big men, or in filling only your immediate needs, then Florida or Mississippi State might get the nod.
Florida landed 7-1 Dwayne Schintzius of Brandon. Fla.. plus 6-6 Dwayne Davis of St. Petersburg, Fla. (Dixie Hollins High).
Schintzius, of course, was a player that was mentioned as being courted by UK (he visited during the football season), and is ranked in some polls as a better prospect than 7-2. 260-pountd Felton Spencer from Middletown's Eastern High, outside of Louisville.
Mississippi Stte's big man is 6-11 Maurice Ezzard of Sylvan High (GA). Ezzard is another mature, physical player, weighing 230 pounds.
Ezzard is something of a mystery player, since he's not rated in the top 20 or 30 among seniors about to graduate from high school, but among those earning honorable mention.
Both Florida and Mississippi State seemed to fill some real needs. The Gators lack only a big man, a proven big man.
With a squad sprinkled with juniors and sophomores this year, the fast-rising Schintzius may just fill out the Gators' SEC title hopes.
Coach Bob Boyd does have some size at State, but no one as big as Ezzard. Ezzard would allow Boyd to fill out a front line of 6-8 Tony Robinson (if he makes an academic comeback). 6-9 Raymond Brown, and Ezzard, next year. And, Boyd will also have 6-8 Albert Blakeley, who's a new face this year, plus 6-10 stringbean Hubert Henderson, returning next season.
Color Mississippi State big for NEXT season.
For fans who look at the numbers of players recruited as a yardstick for success, then Tennessee and Georgia lead the way through November recruiting.
Tennessee has brought in two 6-7 forwards: Mike Coy of Tampa, Fla..; and Ian Lockhart of Nassau, The Bahamas. The Vols also have 6-2 Greg Bell of Belle, W. Va., in the fold, too. Bell, from what Chris Wallace (one of the recruiting experts, from Buchanan. W. Va.) said on a Lexington radio show last week, is a complimentary player that he (Wallace) doesn't rate as high as current Vols point guard Tony White, for now.
Of course. White wasn't that well-known coming out of the Maryland high school ranks three years ago. But, he's an outstanding player.
Georgia has got three plaeyrs, also. And, Hugh Durhan landed an inside man, a forward, and a guard, helping him fill in help everywhere.
Brad Vickers. 6-9, from Savannah. Ga.. is the tallest. Derrick Kirce is the forward. He's 6-6, from Sarasota. Fla. The guard is 6-2 Terry Swinson. from Homerville. Ga., and the last of the trio to be announced.
Two other SEC schools landed players UK was interested in at one point or another.
Auburn landed 6-3 Derrick Dennison of Douglass High in Atlanta. UK had Dennison on a list of some five or six guards not too long ago. But, Auburn has had a steady stream of talent coming in from Douglass for the past several seasons. Starting forward Chris Morris is already at Auburn.
Vanderbilt, which has recruited more Kentuckians than UK over the past three or four years, landed 6-2 Scott Draud of Ft. Thomas Highlands. Draud averaged a little over 30 points per game last year, and led the state.
Alabama signed 6-7 Michael Dizaar of Birmingham's Carver High, and he's probably the biggest "sleeper" on the early lists in the conference. No one outside Alabama seems to know much about him. But, he does continue Alabama's 20-year tradition of signing Birmingham talent.
Louisiana State, facing several flaps in Baton Rouge and in the national media (similar to UK's worries, but not for the same reasons) landed 6-6 Ben McDonald of Denham Springs, La.
McDonald is another SEC recruit who has won some national acclaim by those who do recruiting and talent surveys.
Unless there were some last-hour signings on Nov. 20, no more signings will take place, or be announced, until Wednesday April 9, when the traditional spring recruiting month acitivi-ty begins.
So, where does that leave UK and its nine SEC brothers?
Sutton and the Cats did lose a few, but he'll have four more scholarships to offer to prospects this winter. Alabama will have five openings in April, while Auburn has four. Florida will have no openings, unless someone on the current team leaves, or fails to make the grade academically. Georgia does have two possible openings to fill, while LSU could land three
more. Guards might be a priority for coach Dale Brown, since both his prospective starters this season graduate in the spring.
Mississippi, which landed no one in November, will have four openings, unless coach Lee Hunt puts his son, Ted, a 6-2 freshman walk-on, on scholarship, Mississippi Stte. besides Ezzard, could land three more, four if Tony Robinson does not come back next year. Tennessee could offer two more grants, but DeVoe has two walk-ons playing this year, and one, Travis Henry, is promising enough out of high school to merit, a scholarship.
CM. Newton at Vanderbilt could land two other players in the spring.
So, with Chapman, Schintzius, Derrickson, McDonald and Draud, the SEC did manage to take in five of the top 60 or so players in the country. With Ezzard and Hanson added, the SEC has perhaps seven of the top 100 or so.
But, what about those who "got away?"
For UK and Sutton, of course, the biggest name is Terry Mills, the 6-10 superstar from Romulus. Mich., who'll play at Michigan.
It seems that Mills favored UK for most of his high school career, and made many, many trips to Lexington. But. Bill Frieder. the Michigan coach, put on a big rush and landed the star (one of the two best in this year's senior class, according to the experts).
Oddly enough, Frieder could start four players next year for whom he outfought UK is recruiting battles that heated up to varying degrees in their respective years.
The four would include Mills, 6-6 swingman forward. Richard Rellford from Florida. 6-5 junior guard Antione Joubert from Detroit, and 6-3 sophomore guard Gary Grant from Canton, Ohio.
In truth, UK was out early, or comparitively early, in the chase for Rellford and Joubert. but the Grant situation two springs ago left a bitter taste in the mouths of UK staffers and fans. Mills, coupled with Grant, is another even more bitter, bigger pill to swallow.
Ricky Jones, a 6-6 swingman compared with both former UK star Jack Givens and former North Carolina wonderman Michael Jordan, stayed home, and signed with Clemson. He is from a high school only four or five miles from the Clemson gym.
(Mills, by the way, is only 11 miles from Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan.)
Arkansas, from whence cometh Sutton, landed 6-6 Ron Heury from Memphis. Heury had been mentioned in connection with UK last spring, before Joe B. Hall retired, but his name had not come up often this fall.
Mills
Pendelton
Marcus Broadnax. a 6-2 guard from Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., went to St. John's. UK recruiter Leonard Hamilton was known to have his eye on Broadnax last spring.
Georgia Tech landed 6-11 James Munlyn of South Aiken, SC., along with guards Michael Christian, 6-3, from Denver, and Brian Oliver. 6-4, from Smyrna, Ga.
Two big forwards who were mentioned as being on UK's list who went elsewhere are 6-8 Jon Fedor. of Daytona Beach, Fla., who has signed with Florida State; and 6-8 Larry Rembert of Orrville, Ala., who signed with Alabama-Birmingham.
Several players with whom UK has been in contact who have not signed include: 6-3 Kevin Pritchard of Tulsa, Okla., 6-6 Derrick Miller of Savannah, Ga., 6-7 Myron DeVoe of Louisville Western High, and 6-5 Nick Sanford of Cawood High in Harlan.
There may be some others out there who UK has talked with, at length. Certainly, there will be some who haven't been talked about much. And, some of those could be big men.
For those who are disappointed that players such as Mills, Jones, Pritchard, and Miller did not sign (yet), take notice.
Michigan did not get everything it asked for, either.
Anthonly Pendleton, a 6-4 guard from Flint, Mich., Northwestern High, was a prominent name (right up there next to Mills), and someone who already has a friend at Michigan (6-7 Glenn Rice).
Pendleton, Mills, 6-10 Kurt Portman of Sheboygan, Wis., and some others all visited Michigan earlier this fall when the Wolverines beat Notre Dame 12-10 in a football game witnessed by 104,000 fans.
Mills went for the excitement. Pendleton signed with Iowa. Portman signed with Wisconsin.
UCLA, which has been down most of the past decade, going through five coaches in 10 years, and failing to make the NCAA field several times when eligible, needs tall people this year.
Second-year coach Walt Hazzard landed 6-11 Kevin Walker of Brea, Calif., 6-10 Greg Foster of Oakland, Calif., and 6-8 Trevor Wilson (a forward/guard) from Reseda, Calif.
North Carolina, with five players 6-10 or 6-11 on the roster this year, landed 6-10 Scott Williams of Hacienda Heights. Calif. (UK was interested, but dropped out earlier this fall.) Another UNC signee is, get this (!) Peter Chilcutt, 6-8, from Tuscaloosa, Ala. (!).