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Dan McDonald is back with his weekend primer, McDonald's Nuggets. This week’s edition discusses the shortcomings of the new recruiting calendar, where four-star Sahvir Wheeler stands and a potential big commit coming for Arizona State.
WHAT'S ON MY MIND: The new recruiting calendar stinks
Everyone involved knew it when the NCAA made the change. College coaches knew it. Travel coaches knew. Scouts and media who cover recruiting knew it. This new recruiting calendar isn’t helping the high school players that it was designed to help.
Only one recruiting weekend in April is rough but isn’t necessarily the NCAA’s fault because a late Final Four, an ACT test date, and a late Easter all made it tough to find two weekends like usual for college coaches to be out evaluating players. However, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal to give coaches this upcoming weekend as a second weekend to be out evaluating upcoming talent.
As we move towards June, there are supposed to be two open weekends for high school teams to attend team camps or for players to attend individual camps. Most states aren’t doing those. So now that leaves us with one weekend in July where there will be a zillion different tournaments for travel teams to play in front of coaches plus a couple camps later in the month, which is a really tough setting to evaluate players. The 2020 class is getting a bad deal here, and I just hope the NCAA recognizes this in time to change it for the 2021 class.
PREDICTION: Sahvir Wheeler closing in on a decision
Sahvir Wheeler thought he had his college decision out of the way really early in the process when he committed to Texas A&M as a sophomore. When the Aggies decided to part ways with Billy Kennedy as head coach, it was back to the square one for the local four-star point guard.
He’s moved quickly since getting his release from Texas A&M, and it appears he’s down to Georgia and Iowa State after taking official visits to both schools last week. Georgia’s connection here was Amir Abdur-Rahim, who recently took the head coaching position at Kennesaw State but was a former Texas A&M assistant under Kennedy before spending the year at Georgia. Iowa State head coach Steve Prohm was also an assistant under Kennedy at Murray State before being elevated to head coach when Kennedy left for Texas A&M. With a decision date set for May 6, I like Georgia’s chances three days out from his announcement.
RECRUITING NOTE: Arizona State close to landing big fish?
Shortly after talking to Marcus Bagley on Saturday night at the Terrific 24 in Atlanta, I made FutureCast pick for Arizona State for him. It sounded like he really enjoyed his time there on his official visit and likes the plan Bobby Hurley and his staff have for him. The four-star small forward in the 2020 class also hinted that he might not be too far away from a decision, but he did mentioned that he would like to see Pittsburgh before coming to a decision. Pittsburgh’s connection is through Jeff Capel, who recruited Bagley’s older brother Marvin to Duke.
COMMITMENT OF THE WEEK: UNC SCORES AGAIN
Charleston Southern grad transfer Christian Keeling had originally set May 12, Mother’s Day, to announce his commitment. As it turns out, he couldn’t wait that long to tell the world he was picking North Carolina. This is a significant addition for Roy Williams. The Georgia native averaged over 17 points per game all three years at Charleston Southern. Putting him beside Cole Anthony in the Tar Heels backcourt will make for one of the better scoring duos in the country next season. The addition of Keeling wasn't the Heels only foray into the grad transfer market this week. On Thursday, UNC added William & Mary transfer Justin Pierce. A 6-foot-7 forward, Pierce averaged 14.9 points and 8.9 rebounds last season and has shown the ability to knock home jumpers.
