Starting Five: Evans ready to decide
The No. 26 player in the country Jawun Evans is through with the visit process and will soon have a decision. Meanwhile, Clemson and Fresno State both picked up key Rivals150 targets over the weekend. We discuss those items and more in this week's Starting Five.
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Decision coming for Evans
For a while now, the speculation has been that the nation's No. 26 player Jawun Evans would have a college decision shortly after he wrapped up the official visit process. Late last week, he did exactly that with a visit to Oklahoma State.
Sure enough, the 5-foot-11 point guard from Dallas (Texas) Kimball is ready to make his decision. On Wednesday, Evans will pick from among the Cowboys, Illinois and USC.
Having visited all three programs, the South Carolina transplant has had a chance to get on campus and assess the needs, chance to win and availability of playing time at each program. A speedy and creative floor general, Evans should be able to command major minutes at each of his potential destinations, and he will be a monster addition wherever he ends up.
Evans himself has been pretty quiet about where he stands in his recruitment. Behind the scenes, though, word over the past few weeks has been that Travis Ford has Oklahoma State in pretty good condition; and with a few days to go before the announcement, that still appears to be the case.
Clemson adds Rivals150 point guard
While Evans is closing in on a decision, Rivals150 floor general Ty Hudson picked Clemson while he was on his official visit over the weekend.
Even though the tough 6-foot-1 point guard from Mableton (Ga.) Pebblebrook was considered a pretty heavy lean headed into his visit, the Tigers still had to close him, and they did so before the weekend had finished.
In Evans they are landing a ball handler with toughness and strength who excels at getting into the lane and finishing around the rim. Evans is good setup man for teammates, plays good on the ball defense and should arrive on campus physically ready to play in the ACC. He does need to continue to hone his outside shot and at times he can get a bit sped up in his decision making, but he looks like a player with the tools to help right away and possibly develop into a multi-year starter during his career.
The first player to commit to Clemson from the class of 2015, Hudson is the third straight Rivals150 recruit as both of their 2014 recruits, Donte Grantham and Gabe DeVoe, ended up in the final rankings for the class of 2014.
Now the Tigers can turn their attention to trying to close Rivals150 PF Luke Maye. One of the craftiest scorers in the class of 2015, Maye is a skilled big man from North Carolina who is considering Clemson heavily.
Rivals150 forward headed to Fresno
For the past few weeks, Lamar Bigby, the summer coach of Rivals150 combo forward Nate Grimes, has been indicating that the 6-foot-8 senior was nearing a decision.
In line with that information, the native of Las Vegas who is spending his senior season at Winston-Salem (N.C.) Quality Education had be chopping down his list. Instead of making another chop on Sunday, Grimes eliminated everybody but Fresno State as he committed to the Bulldogs via his twitter account.
That makes four Rivals150 prospects (Robert Upshaw in 2012, Paul Watson in 2013 and Isaiah Bailey in 2015) who have committed to the Bulldogs in recent years, and Grimes is the type of player that should be able to step in and provide immediate help.
The No. 116 player in the class of 2015, Grimes is a combo forward who has started to add muscle to a once lean frame. He plays with a good motor, rebounds well and has become a pretty reliable mid range scorer. Grimes has the athleticism and length to play against bigger players on the interior. Still relatively new to high level basketball, Grimes is somewhat raw but looks to be a quick learner and should end up a highly productive player for Rodney Terry and the Bulldogs.
Wichita State completes Kansas City backcourt
Over the weekend the Wichita State Shockers hosted slashing forward Markis McDuffie from New Jersey and prep school combo guard Tyrone Taylor for official visits. McDuffie still plans to take his final official visit to Boston College, but Taylor informed Rivals.com via text message on Sunday that he is a Shocker.
Originally from the Kansas City area, Taylor is playing a year of prep school ball at Chatham (Va.) Hargrave after a strong career at Grandview (Mo.) High.
Standing 6-foot-3, Taylor is a high end three-star prospect and specializes in scoring off of the dribble. He gets into the lane with quickness, finishes at the rim and also uses an assortment of pull-ups and floaters to do damage from the mid range. More of a streak shooter from deep than a pure shooter, Taylor can cause big headaches for defenders when he gets hot from deep. His long arms and quickness should allow him to develop into a very good defender for the Shockers.
Interestingly enough, the Kansas City area has not been one that Gregg Marshall and his staff have really tapped into while building their program just a few hours away from the K.C. Metro. The last time the Shockers added players from Kansas City was in the class of 2008 when they took big man Garrett Stutz and junior college guard Reggie Chamberlain. This year, though, Taylor is the second player from the area to commit to play his college ball at Wichita State. He joins four-star combo guard Landry Shamet, meaning that there could eventually be an all-Kansas City backcourt in Wichita.
San Diego junior generating buzz
A strong candidate to work his way into the Rivals150 for the class of 2016 is San Diego (Calif.) Francis Parker combo forward Tim Harrison.
Harrison stands 6-foot-8 with good skill and plenty of athleticism and those qualities have started to command the attention of many prominent basketball programs and his school has become quite a popular stop.
In just the past few weeks Harrison has seen staff members from Arizona State, California, Colorado, Gonzaga, Harvard, New Mexico, Princeton, San Diego State, Stanford, UNLV and Washington. This week, Oregon State and USC are planning to stop by and see him play while San Diego State will be in again.
The visits have also yielded early scholarship offers for Harrison. Harvard, New Mexico, UNLV and Washington have all made offers after seeing him and sources close to the situation have indicated that Colorado, Gonzaga and Arizona State are all close to making offers as well.
Clearly, Harrison has put himself on the radar in a big way and he will continue to be watched closely as his junior year progresses.
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