Marra spells out his decision

The writing was clearly on the wall and after a visit from a Big East head coach, Mike Marra spelled out the future of his basketball career on Thursday. The 6-foot-4, 200-pound shooter from Northfield Mount Hermon (Mass.) is officially off the board.

Marra verbally committed to Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals less than 24 hours after the legendary coach made a trip north to see the sharp-shooter in action on Wednesday night.

"The big thing was my goal is to get to the NBA and I feel like Rick Pitino can hopefully help me get there," Marra said. "From what I know about him, he's an all-around great guy. He's an honest guy and I felt really comfortable with him. I think that was the big thing with him, just that comfortability factor with him."

Marra, a Rhode Island native, also considered Wake Forest, UMass, Providence and others.

"Louisville just blew all of the other schools out of the water," Marra said. "Nothing compared to them."

Marra unofficially visited Louisville in December.

"The fan base is excellent. Everything I saw when I walked around down there was Louisville basketball," Marra said. "The fan support was amazing, the arena was great, the practice facility was amazing. Everything, all-around, I loved it."

The Cardinals landed one of the best shooters in the class of 2009. Marra is putting up big numbers this season for Northfield and he says he hopes to help the Cardinals right away with his perimeter game.

"He said I need to gain a lot more weight and I'm sure they are going to put me on a great weight program when I get there to do that," Marra said. "Hopefully I should be able to get some good minutes when I get there so I can do what I do really well and that is shoot the ball."

"He's been wanting to do it for a long time," says Northfield head coach John Carroll. "I think he made a good one here. He did his homework and thought about it and did a great thing for him and his family."