Rivers names top five
Now that the season is over for Jeremiah Rivers, a 6-foot-4, 180-pound point guard from Winter Park (Fla.) High School, he's making plans to see some of the best basketball programs in the nation.
Rivers, the No. 32 ranked player in the class of 2006 by Rivals.com, enjoyed a solid junior season but it ended earlier than he would have liked it. There is some solace in the fact that the team that knocked his Winter Park team out of the tournament is in the state Final Four.
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Nevertheless, it's time to get to another stage in the game - recruiting. And the coveted guard has a top five loaded with big-timers.
"Right now it's pretty much Wake Forest, Kansas, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame and Georgetown," Rivers said.
Look closely and one school is not on the list - Marquette. His father is Doc Rivers, head coach of the NBA's Boston Celtics. Many believed the younger Rivers would look closely at the Golden Eagles.
"I kind of want to do my own thing. It's nothing against them. I like coach (Tom) Crean. He's a great guy but I want to go to a school that I like, not just where my dad went to school."
As the future Big East school is cut from his list, Rivers recently visited a school currently in the conference.
"I just got back from Notre Dame last week," Rivers said. "It was my second time up there. I always like it up there. Unfortunately they got their butt whopped by Pitt when I was there but they were really nice when I was there."
Rivers said he will likely visit Kansas and Wake Forest in the next month. He unofficially visited Georgetown before the season started. Rivers said he does not have any concrete plans to visit Georgia Tech, one of his five top schools, just yet.
According to Winter Park head coach Matt Hixenbaugh, coaches from Florida State and Notre Dame came to Winter Park's last game of the year and Kansas had an assistant at the final practice of the season to see Rivers run the offense.
With impending visits on the horizon and after already gathering information on some of his other favorite schools, Rivers said a decision could be coming soon.
"It will definitely be before July," Rivers said.
Like every big-time prospect, Rivers will hit the road in April, making his first stop at the Boo Williams tournament in Virginia. Then at the end of the month, he'll travel to Milan, Italy with Leo Papile's BABC AAU program out of Boston.
Rivers is a guard that can help both as a scorer and a guy that can play in the half court offense. Watching tapes of Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade sent to him from his father Rivers is always trying to better his game.
Rivers had a solid stat line of 14.8 points, 5.7 assists and 4.3 rebounds a game as a junior.
"As you can tell, he did a lot for us," Hixenbaugh said. "It was a good, solid year for him. He learned how to play with the ball in his hands and lead the team being the point guard."
Whatever school Rivers picks, he'll give the team a disciplined, hard-working guard that only has his best days ahead of him.