Welcome to The Hoosier Insider, our weekly installment getting you caught up on Indiana basketball, football and recruiting. Let's get to it:
Jordan Wells / Basketball Recruiting
Indiana continues to expand its point guard recruiting as it appears possible Paul Scruggs could spurn the Hoosiers for Xavier. One of those possibilities is 2017 point guard Tremont Waters, who released a top seven this week including Connecticut, Duke, Georgetown, IU, Kansas, Kentucky and Yale in alphabetical order. Duke and Kentucky are both positioned to possibly land point guards besides Waters, which would help IU’s case for the No. 39 player nationally, but UConn also looms.
Another point guard Indiana is looking at is five-star Trevon Duval, who’s actually ranked as the top PG in the class as the No. 5 overall player nationally. Interestingly, though, schools such as Duke and Kentucky seem to be taking a pass on Duval. The five-star spent last year at Advanced Preparatory International, where he played alongside 2016 five-star Terrance Ferguson. Ferguson had committed to Arizona, but has since opted to play a year overseas after rumors of eligibility concerns. Prior to his year at API, Ferguson played at Prime Prep, where 2014 five-star Emmanuel Mudiay attended before also choosing to play overseas over college.
Three-star guard David Beatty told ESPN’s Jeff Borzello late Thursday night that he plans to visit Indiana in August. There’s a ways to go in this recruitment, but he had trimmed his list to IU, UCLA, Maryland, UConn, Georgetown, Virginia, La Salle and Temple, and has already visited many of the schools on that list - so a trip to Bloomington is natural. He also has said Texas and Missouri are in the mix now.
Still some work to do with big men in this class. According to our Kentucky site (link), they report IU target Mo Bamba seems to be UK’s No. 1 priority as a big man. They also think IU target Nick Richards favors the Cats as of today. Additionally, Louisville has made Malik Williams a huge priority this July.
In positive news, four-star forward Justin Smith could be cutting his list Indiana day now, and the Hoosiers should make the list. We caught up with Smith since the last week, and you can read that story here (link), plus new video (link).
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Basketball Recruiting / Jacey Zembal
Talking to enough of the East Coast recruits and an underrated theme emerged. Indiana is butting heads on the recruiting trail with the likes of Kentucky or Duke on some high profile players, but another school can’t be discounted.
Villanova won the national title and are hoping for a banner class in 2017. The West Chester (Pa.) Westtown School senior duo of Mohamed Bamba and Brandon Randolph both list Villanova, as does recent Indiana senior offer Jermaine Samuels of Weston (Mass.) Rivers School and senior Jordan Tucker of White Plains (N.Y.) Archbishop Stepinac.
Samuels said this week that Villanova was his ride or die East Coast school from the beginning, but Indiana will get the chance to make up for lost time.
Randolph, who is from Yonkers, N.Y., is definitely considering Villanova hard after being around the program. Randolph has been playing things close to the vest, but has offers from Indiana, Villanova, Arizona, Kansas, UNC, Maryland and Notre Dame, among others.
Bamba gets a lot of Duke or Kentucky talk, but Indiana, Villanova, Texas, Syracuse, Louisville and UConn, are in the mix. The Harlem, N.Y. native has a pair of half-brothers that were college centers — Ibrahim Johnson and Sidiki Johnson. The latter started off at Arizona but ran into trouble off the court, and the same thing happened at Providence.
The Wildcats have a commitment from local power forward Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree of Philadelphia (Pa.) Neumann-Goretti, and have four more scholarships available. Senior point guard Quade Green plays with Cosby-Roundtree in high school, and then with Bamba and Randolph on PSA Cardinals. Reading (Pa.) High senior shooting guard Lonnie Walker is another key Villanova target, and plays with Cosby-Roundtree on Team Final traveling team.
•••
It’s easy to hang on every word of a high school recruit, but they’ll be the first one to admit the omit key information by mistake at times. Case in point, senior point guard Jose Alvarado of Queens (N.Y.) Christ the King. He rattled off a bunch of colleges, but not Indiana. When he was asked about Indiana, he replied: “Oh, they should have been the first school mentioned.”
Tucker is another good example. A year ago, after an interview, he raved on and on about Arizona, who offered him Dec. 28, 2013. Last week, pretty clear that Arizona wasn’t in the picture anymore and have faded.
•••
Indiana might not have moved on former Bronx (N.Y.) St. Raymond’s standout Sidney Wilson if he had stayed in the class of 2017. The Hoosiers had offered him, but the recruitment started to fade over time. Wilson making the move to class of 2018 and Wolfeboro (N.H.) Brewster Academy could restart things. IU assistant coach Chuck Martin is a St. Raymond’s alum.
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Basketball Beat and Recruiting / Stu Jackson
To add onto basketball recruiting:
2018 five-star guard Romeo Langford told me Wednesday night he’s not planning to go to St. Louis where his AAU team, the Eric Gordon All-Stars, is expected to be playing. The No. 2 player in the 2018 Rivals 150, Langford’s high school, New Albany, starts on July 27, three days after the final July evaluation period. He’s just trying to get a break in before the final evaluation period next week in Las Vegas.
Langford did elect to play in the Indiana Basketball Coaches’ Association (IBCA) Top 100 Underclassmen Showcase at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis Wednesday night. He was watched by Indiana associate head coach Tim Buckley and Louisville assistant coach David Padgett.
Non-recruiting/regular basketball beat news:
Indiana’s second-round NCAA Tournament Game drew 10.49 million viewers, making it the fourth-most watched college basketball game of 2016. It had more viewers than this year's MLB All-Star Game and NFL Draft.
Four former Indiana players have been competing in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas since July 8. Tournament play began Wednesday night, with Noah Vonleh and the Portland Trail Blazers getting eliminated in the first round by the Utah Jazz. Verdell Jones III, playing in his first summer league, and the NBA D-League Select Team also got eliminated in the first round, falling to the Philadelphia 76ers.
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Football Beat and Recruiting / Sam Beishuizen
Indiana continued its 2017 trend of picking up in-state talent with a verbal commitment from Peyton Hendershot, a two-star right end out of Lizton, Indiana. Hendershot was long committed to Ball State before an Indiana offer made him think twice and decommit. As it turns out, Indiana was Hendershot’s dream school since he was a little kid. So to be able to play for the Hoosiers is a dream come true for the 6-foot-4, 215-pound tight end. There was talk of him potentially being recruited as an athlete at Indiana (he plays defensive end in high school) but it doesn’t seem like there’s any question about where Hendershot will play, at least in his mind. He told me he’d be a tight end with Indiana and is looking forward to play for tight ends coach James Patton.
As I wrote about Thursday, Hendershot’s addition is a welcome sign that Indiana is getting in-state kids to commit. I’m not about to say that Indiana will become a destination school for top Hoosier talent, but IU is definitely closer today than they were last year to making that happen. Only eight commits into the 2017 class, Kevin Wilson has four native Hoosiers set to come to Bloomington. He’s chasing a few more, including four-star safety R.J. Potts, among others, and could easily end up with upwards of seven, maybe eight Indiana natives if his upcoming camp series goes well. But that’s simply an estimation.
Speaking of commits, Wilson finally got around to confirming Alfred Bryant’s commitment around the same time he confirmed Hendershot’s. Bryant, a three-star defensive end out of Texas, committed the first week of July but didn’t get a #BOOM tweet from Wilson, a signal that Wilson has accepted the commitment. Well, that changed. That’s good news for Indiana.
While on the topic of highly-rated defensive players, three-star defensive tackle Juan Harris listed Indiana among his final three schools with Illinois and Minnesota. He’s going to visit Indiana near the end of the month and said he has no timetable for his choice at the moment. My guess is we might hear from him near the end of August once he has time to digest his visits, although it could be sooner.
I caught up with Bryant Fitzgerald the other day and he confirmed that he is “fully committed” to Indiana. The three-star safety out of Avon, Indiana, has an upcoming trip to West Virginia scheduled for July 23rd and also wants to see Minnesota and Wisconsin. He told me it would be a disservice to himself not to visit the schools that offered him but reiterated that he’s locked in on being a Hoosier. I don’t think Fitzgerald is going to decommit from Indiana any time soon, but the fact that he’s still taking visits means there’s at least some room for a flip. I don’t think it’s very large, though.
Jordan Wells / Basketball Recruiting
Indiana continues to expand its point guard recruiting as it appears possible Paul Scruggs could spurn the Hoosiers for Xavier. One of those possibilities is 2017 point guard Tremont Waters, who released a top seven this week including Connecticut, Duke, Georgetown, IU, Kansas, Kentucky and Yale in alphabetical order. Duke and Kentucky are both positioned to possibly land point guards besides Waters, which would help IU’s case for the No. 39 player nationally, but UConn also looms.
Another point guard Indiana is looking at is five-star Trevon Duval, who’s actually ranked as the top PG in the class as the No. 5 overall player nationally. Interestingly, though, schools such as Duke and Kentucky seem to be taking a pass on Duval. The five-star spent last year at Advanced Preparatory International, where he played alongside 2016 five-star Terrance Ferguson. Ferguson had committed to Arizona, but has since opted to play a year overseas after rumors of eligibility concerns. Prior to his year at API, Ferguson played at Prime Prep, where 2014 five-star Emmanuel Mudiay attended before also choosing to play overseas over college.
Three-star guard David Beatty told ESPN’s Jeff Borzello late Thursday night that he plans to visit Indiana in August. There’s a ways to go in this recruitment, but he had trimmed his list to IU, UCLA, Maryland, UConn, Georgetown, Virginia, La Salle and Temple, and has already visited many of the schools on that list - so a trip to Bloomington is natural. He also has said Texas and Missouri are in the mix now.
Still some work to do with big men in this class. According to our Kentucky site (link), they report IU target Mo Bamba seems to be UK’s No. 1 priority as a big man. They also think IU target Nick Richards favors the Cats as of today. Additionally, Louisville has made Malik Williams a huge priority this July.
In positive news, four-star forward Justin Smith could be cutting his list Indiana day now, and the Hoosiers should make the list. We caught up with Smith since the last week, and you can read that story here (link), plus new video (link).
------------------------------------------
Basketball Recruiting / Jacey Zembal
Talking to enough of the East Coast recruits and an underrated theme emerged. Indiana is butting heads on the recruiting trail with the likes of Kentucky or Duke on some high profile players, but another school can’t be discounted.
Villanova won the national title and are hoping for a banner class in 2017. The West Chester (Pa.) Westtown School senior duo of Mohamed Bamba and Brandon Randolph both list Villanova, as does recent Indiana senior offer Jermaine Samuels of Weston (Mass.) Rivers School and senior Jordan Tucker of White Plains (N.Y.) Archbishop Stepinac.
Samuels said this week that Villanova was his ride or die East Coast school from the beginning, but Indiana will get the chance to make up for lost time.
Randolph, who is from Yonkers, N.Y., is definitely considering Villanova hard after being around the program. Randolph has been playing things close to the vest, but has offers from Indiana, Villanova, Arizona, Kansas, UNC, Maryland and Notre Dame, among others.
Bamba gets a lot of Duke or Kentucky talk, but Indiana, Villanova, Texas, Syracuse, Louisville and UConn, are in the mix. The Harlem, N.Y. native has a pair of half-brothers that were college centers — Ibrahim Johnson and Sidiki Johnson. The latter started off at Arizona but ran into trouble off the court, and the same thing happened at Providence.
The Wildcats have a commitment from local power forward Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree of Philadelphia (Pa.) Neumann-Goretti, and have four more scholarships available. Senior point guard Quade Green plays with Cosby-Roundtree in high school, and then with Bamba and Randolph on PSA Cardinals. Reading (Pa.) High senior shooting guard Lonnie Walker is another key Villanova target, and plays with Cosby-Roundtree on Team Final traveling team.
•••
It’s easy to hang on every word of a high school recruit, but they’ll be the first one to admit the omit key information by mistake at times. Case in point, senior point guard Jose Alvarado of Queens (N.Y.) Christ the King. He rattled off a bunch of colleges, but not Indiana. When he was asked about Indiana, he replied: “Oh, they should have been the first school mentioned.”
Tucker is another good example. A year ago, after an interview, he raved on and on about Arizona, who offered him Dec. 28, 2013. Last week, pretty clear that Arizona wasn’t in the picture anymore and have faded.
•••
Indiana might not have moved on former Bronx (N.Y.) St. Raymond’s standout Sidney Wilson if he had stayed in the class of 2017. The Hoosiers had offered him, but the recruitment started to fade over time. Wilson making the move to class of 2018 and Wolfeboro (N.H.) Brewster Academy could restart things. IU assistant coach Chuck Martin is a St. Raymond’s alum.
------------------------------------
Basketball Beat and Recruiting / Stu Jackson
To add onto basketball recruiting:
2018 five-star guard Romeo Langford told me Wednesday night he’s not planning to go to St. Louis where his AAU team, the Eric Gordon All-Stars, is expected to be playing. The No. 2 player in the 2018 Rivals 150, Langford’s high school, New Albany, starts on July 27, three days after the final July evaluation period. He’s just trying to get a break in before the final evaluation period next week in Las Vegas.
Langford did elect to play in the Indiana Basketball Coaches’ Association (IBCA) Top 100 Underclassmen Showcase at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis Wednesday night. He was watched by Indiana associate head coach Tim Buckley and Louisville assistant coach David Padgett.
Non-recruiting/regular basketball beat news:
Indiana’s second-round NCAA Tournament Game drew 10.49 million viewers, making it the fourth-most watched college basketball game of 2016. It had more viewers than this year's MLB All-Star Game and NFL Draft.
Four former Indiana players have been competing in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas since July 8. Tournament play began Wednesday night, with Noah Vonleh and the Portland Trail Blazers getting eliminated in the first round by the Utah Jazz. Verdell Jones III, playing in his first summer league, and the NBA D-League Select Team also got eliminated in the first round, falling to the Philadelphia 76ers.
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Football Beat and Recruiting / Sam Beishuizen
Indiana continued its 2017 trend of picking up in-state talent with a verbal commitment from Peyton Hendershot, a two-star right end out of Lizton, Indiana. Hendershot was long committed to Ball State before an Indiana offer made him think twice and decommit. As it turns out, Indiana was Hendershot’s dream school since he was a little kid. So to be able to play for the Hoosiers is a dream come true for the 6-foot-4, 215-pound tight end. There was talk of him potentially being recruited as an athlete at Indiana (he plays defensive end in high school) but it doesn’t seem like there’s any question about where Hendershot will play, at least in his mind. He told me he’d be a tight end with Indiana and is looking forward to play for tight ends coach James Patton.
As I wrote about Thursday, Hendershot’s addition is a welcome sign that Indiana is getting in-state kids to commit. I’m not about to say that Indiana will become a destination school for top Hoosier talent, but IU is definitely closer today than they were last year to making that happen. Only eight commits into the 2017 class, Kevin Wilson has four native Hoosiers set to come to Bloomington. He’s chasing a few more, including four-star safety R.J. Potts, among others, and could easily end up with upwards of seven, maybe eight Indiana natives if his upcoming camp series goes well. But that’s simply an estimation.
Speaking of commits, Wilson finally got around to confirming Alfred Bryant’s commitment around the same time he confirmed Hendershot’s. Bryant, a three-star defensive end out of Texas, committed the first week of July but didn’t get a #BOOM tweet from Wilson, a signal that Wilson has accepted the commitment. Well, that changed. That’s good news for Indiana.
While on the topic of highly-rated defensive players, three-star defensive tackle Juan Harris listed Indiana among his final three schools with Illinois and Minnesota. He’s going to visit Indiana near the end of the month and said he has no timetable for his choice at the moment. My guess is we might hear from him near the end of August once he has time to digest his visits, although it could be sooner.
I caught up with Bryant Fitzgerald the other day and he confirmed that he is “fully committed” to Indiana. The three-star safety out of Avon, Indiana, has an upcoming trip to West Virginia scheduled for July 23rd and also wants to see Minnesota and Wisconsin. He told me it would be a disservice to himself not to visit the schools that offered him but reiterated that he’s locked in on being a Hoosier. I don’t think Fitzgerald is going to decommit from Indiana any time soon, but the fact that he’s still taking visits means there’s at least some room for a flip. I don’t think it’s very large, though.
