Roy Williams Shows His Love To Wilkes

Roy Williams spent quite a long time in the home of Omar Wilkes on Tuesday night, but it wasn't enough to yield an oral commitment from the 6-3 shooting guard from Loyola H.S. in Los Angeles, Calif.

But Wilkes, who visited Kansas officially back in the spring, admitted that he was tempted at times to pull the trigger on a commitment.

"It was hard not to, but I like the other three schools on my list a lot, so it wouldn't have been fair to shut the door just because of a very impressive first home visit," Wilkes explained. "He's been doing this for a while, and as everyone knows, he happens to be a great coach, and is obviously very good at what he does."

"I am in awe of the job that he did, he did an excellent job," Wilkes continued. "The man wins for a reason. Obviously, he does his job very well."

Wilkes' list remains unchanged from the July evaluation period. He is still standing at four schools, with Kansas, California, Stanford and UCLA fighting it out for his signature on a letter of intent in November.

Each school has a particular selling point with Wilkes. His dad Jamaal (nee Keith) played at UCLA and enjoyed a long NBA career with both the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers.

Wilkes is attracted to California due to its proximity to the Bay Area, and likes the academic challenge that Stanford presents.

Following his Kansas in-home on Tuesday, Wilkes will host UCLA on the 11th, Cal on the 17th and Stanford on the 18th. He just returned from an official visit to Cal (Sept. 6-8) this past weekend, and will take his final two trips to UCLA (Sept. 20-22) and Stanford (Sept. 27-29) later this month.

He anticipates making a decision by early October.

"It right around the corner," Wilkes said. "This is the big month for me, I am getting everything settled out now."

He had nothing but praise for his trip to Berkeley this past weekend.

"I enjoyed my visit to Cal a lot," Wilkes said. "I really liked the basketball program that they are building, and I like the surroundings, it's a great situation to be in the Bay next to San Francisco and Oakland, plus I have family up there. I really enjoyed my trip up there, it's really a great school."

California has already secured commitments from five players in the Class of 2003, but Wilkes said that there's still a scholarship for him at the PAC 10 school.

UCLA has geographical and historical advantages over some of the other schools on Wilkes' list, and he is looking forward to his visit to the school later this month.

"I am looking forward to that, because it's the home school," he said. "I know everything about the location and the campus, so it's a chance for me to get in there, see the guys, see how they interact with Coach Lavin, and see what the whole atmosphere is like. It will just be a weekend of feeling it out really, because location wise, there's nothing they can tell me that I don't know. They can't school me about the history of the program, because I've heard all of that stuff."

Stanford presents the most unique opportunity in Wilkes' eyes from an academic and athletic standpoint.

"Stanford has great academics and basketball, a great balance of the two," he said. "It's an opportunity to showcase not just my basketball talents, but I take pride in the fact that I am an intelligent human being, so it's kind of a way to showcase that. It doesn't pigeonhole me or work into the stereotype that all I can do is play basketball. Yeah, I can do the books too, and that's a great school to showcase that."

Wilkes plans on finishing out his official visits in the weeks to come, so we will keep you posted on any new developments in his recruitment.