Interest up for healthy Wilridge
During his junior year, Beaumont (Texas) Central small forward E'Torrion Wilridge had a number of high-major programs that were recruiting him pretty hard and several had offered.
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That all changed at the end of his junior season. On March 6 in a state tournament game, the three-star prospect came down with an injury that was eventually determined to be a torn MCL. Since then, Wilridge has noticed a difference in the attention he's been getting.
"It did drop off," Wlridge admitted to Rivals.com. "When I first started back playing in July, I didn't play very well, and I think that's what hurt my recruiting."
The Texas native said he's starting to feel healthy, and recruiting is starting to pick back up for him.
"Kansas State and Lamar came to my school [yesterday]. Middle Tennessee and New Orleans just recently offered. I'm getting recruited hardest by Georgia; Kansas State is on me pretty hard [and] Oklahoma is still calling me a lot too."
Wilridge took an official visit to Middle Tennessee earlier this month. His next visit will be to the University of Georgia on Oct. 11. Those two schools both find themselves sitting in good position in his recruitment.
"If I had a top three, it would be Georgia, Oklahoma and Middle Tennessee," Wilridge said.
The campus at Middle Tennessee surprised Wilridge.
"I toured the campus. It was really nice. It was bigger than I expected it to be. I went to their football game. I watched them work out. It went well."
Georgia had an assistant coach in Texas earlier this week to see Wilridge, and the Bulldogs appear to be turning up the heat on him.
"I don't know a lot about them, but I know the coaches really well. Coach [Mark] Fox and Coach [Jonas] Hayes have been recruiting me. They have been great. I talk to Coach Hayes a lot. He's a nice guy. He said they need a bigger wing player because they have been playing guards on the wing."
Oklahoma remains in the mix for Wilridge too.
"They have a guy on their team, Khadeem Latin, that I used to play with. When I went on a visit there, I liked it. I liked the campus and the facilities. Coach Hill was one of the first coaches to start recruiting me. I like how they play."
Wilridge plans to continue taking visits in the coming weeks in hopes of wrapping up his recruitment relatively soon.
"I want to do it sometime before the season starts, so I can get it out of the way and focus on my season. I want to go somewhere I have a good relationship with the coaches and where I can play right away."
Dan McDonald is a contributing national basketball recruiting analyst for Rivals.com. You can click here to follow him on Twitter.
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