Peach Jam Spotlight: Kyle Singler

For a guy that has slept in his own bed just twice in the last month, Kyle Singler looked right at home on the hardwood on opening night at the Peach Jam.

The basketball court has become a home away from his Medford, Ore., home. And his hoop neighbors are starting to get a little annoyed with the 6-foot-8 forward. Singler is the neighbor with all of the nice luxuries. He has the greenest and cleanest cut grass. His windows are always clean. The cars are always parked in the garage and the driveway is free of oil stains. Singler has been the perfect neighbor in his basketball neighborhood.

After his dazzling performance on Wednesday night against the loaded Boo Williams Summer League team, Singler had a standing room only crowd buzzing about his dominating performance.

In a much anticipated match-up against Patrick Patterson, one of the hottest big men in the country, Singler went to work. At first it didn't look so good for the mop-haired Northwestern though. He only hit one shot in the first couple minutes and missed six others.

Then something happened.

Singler went on a tear, scoring eight of his next 10 shots. He rebounded everything that came off the rim. His outlet passes were a thing of beauty. The compliments flowed from coach's row. He finished with 29 points and 11 rebounds and a huge 69-67 upset win over Patterson and Boo Williams.

Keep in mind, Singler has slept in nearly every time zone in the country. He is living a life that very few prep stars are living right now.

Singler returned home to Oregon after three weeks of intense basketball in San Antonio. The five-star forward was home for two days. A plane malfunction allowed him to stay at home for a day longer than originally planned. A plateful of mom's spaghetti was a nice change of pace.

"It was pretty good. I'm not going to lie," Singler said. "No joke, we went to Golden Corral for two weeks straight."

Singler averaged 11 points and 6.3 rebounds a game for team USA over the course of four games. He seemed to get better as the four game tourney went on and wore a gold medal by the end of the month.

"It was a neat experience. It was basketball 24-7," Singler said. "When you are not playing, you were in your dorm room drawing up plays or talking about the plays. For me, I was trying to drink it all in and soak up as much as possible.

"When you good players playing, good things happen."

That certainly came to fruition on opening night at the Peach Jam.

After the summer ends, and a long rest in his own bed in his own city, Singler will look at his heated recruitment a little deeper.

"I'm not playing football this year so I'm probably going to take my (official) visits in that time," Singler said. "I'm looking forward to that. I'll probably make my decision within that month or so."

Where will he go first?

"I'm definitely going back to Duke and hitting up Kansas and Arizona and possibly UCLA and Washington," Singler said.

All five were front and center on Wednesday. All five will probably fight through the outside the Riverview Park. But for a guy like Singler it is proving to be worth it.