Rose has five schools, visits on mind
The final five schools are set for the nation's top point guard. Derrick Rose has trimmed his list down and now takes his heated recruitment to another level. Rose's brother, Reggie, broke down the finalists to Rivals.com on Monday.
Rose, a 6-foot-4, 185-pound floor general from Chicago's Simeon High School, is down to DePaul, Indiana, Kansas, Memphis and UCLA. The elder Rose said he was surprised by one particular school on the list.
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"We sat down and talked about it and I was shocked at some of the schools on the list like UCLA," Reggie said. "I didn't know he was talking to (UCLA commit) Kevin Love as much as he does. These kids talk. I don't think people realize that."
"As soon as he gave me the list, I researched them and called the schools to tell them he was interested in them," Reggie said. "Now we'll just set the visits up and go from there."
There have not been any visit dates set up yet but there is an order to where the Roses will travel to first, Reggie said.
Indiana and DePaul will take the first swing. Then Memphis.
"My thing is, I've already been down to Memphis. I know what they have," Reggie said. "You know how kids are. Say a kid always wants to go to Duke, you don't send him there on his first visit. You have to take a couple of visits first to check things out.
"I've told this to a lot of people. He is going to be comfortable where he goes on the basketball court. So he's going to have to find a place where he can be comfortable with the city, with the people, with the place he's going to go."
One noticeable omission from the list is Illinois.
"They aren't on the list because he's not interested in them," Reggie said. "You have to be straight up with someone. If you aren't interested there is no reason to tell them to come and watch him play. You have to be straight forward."
Rose's recruitment is moving straight forward now that the five finalists have been identified.