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Wednesday's Mailbag: Vols, committable offers, more

Jabari Smith
Jabari Smith (Courtesy of USA Basketball)

Today's edition of the mailbag has questions on committable vs. non-committable offers, Tennessee's chances with a couple top recruits and more.

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2021 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team | Position

2022 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team

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This is a great question and if you have spent time around our various team sites, there is always discussion about whether offers may be committable or not. Certainly, though, the evolution of the “offer” has been something that we could almost do an entire series about.

When I first started in this business in the summer of 2000, if you had an offer from say, Florida, it meant that Billy Donovan had told you on the phone or in person “Florida is offering you a scholarship.” There were no assistant coach offers, no “favor” offers and no offers just to keep from getting ruled out early. Obviously, times have changed over the last 20 years.

I would love to see a return to the days when an offer only went out if a school would take you right there on the spot. Those days are gone, though. There is too much pressure on schools to make early offers. So, for a person in my position, we have to continue to build relationships and be on top of things to understand which offers indicate serious, legitimate interest and which are given out for other reasons.

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As far as I can tell and as far as I have heard, Tennessee has made some positive progress with Jabari Smith. There was a stretch about a month ago when the word was circulating that the top five forward was leaning hard toward Georgia. Make no mistake, the Bulldogs are in there deep, but I don’t think it is a done deal. In addition to the Vols making things interesting, Auburn and LSU are still right there as well.

Rick Barnes and his staff also seem to have gained some traction with Ryan Mutombo, and may have even opened up a little bit of a lead. They are recruiting at a high level and are well respected in the Atlanta area. Obviously, Georgetown, the alma mater of his father Dikembe Mutombo, is going to be right there, but the sense is that perhaps Ryan might like to create his own path out of the shadow of his father. The other school that stands out to me right now as one to keep an eye on is Stanford. The academics and great class the Cardinal are putting together could be draws.

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Ultimately, I see the race for Jusaun Holt coming down to three schools. Xavier has done a great job with the four-star forward. Holt’s former point guard, Dwon Odom, is at Xavier now and the Musketeers have built a strong relationship with the versatile wing over the past few years. If I had to favor anybody, I would give them the edge.

However, I would not want to rule out Alabama. Word lately is that the Crimson Tide are making this one very interesting, and if Holt were to decide to play in Tuscaloosa I wouldn’t be at all surprised. The third competitor here is Georgia, but in my estimation the Bulldogs may have a little work left to do if they want to land Holt.

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The recruitment of Kaleb Washington appears to be pretty wide open, and if there has been talk about a leader it hasn’t made it to my ears just yet. Almost three weeks ago he put out a top 11 that included Arkansas, Cincinnati, Dayton, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Iowa State, Miami, Missouri, San Diego State, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. I would expect that the two local schools, Georgia and Georgia Tech, would factor pretty heavily into the mix, but the race for the skilled four-star forward is really just getting started.

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