Russ Smith

According to Anthony Stover's mother Rena the 6'9" C from Renaissance Academy in LA was offered by both ASU and UCLA on Tuesday. He was playing in some event there and after the event ended both schools offered him. He's been discussed at length on UCLA boards before I've seen video of him long and skinny, mechanical but he blocks shots and holds the ball up high. Needs to get stronger looks like a definite 4 year guy who plays a bit more every year not a major impact guy but the kind of role player you need. Excellent student.

UCLA also offered Tyler Honeycutt the SF at the event, ASU has already offered Honeycutt as has USC. Honeycutt indicated those are his top 3 at the moment.

Seems funny to be competing with ASU on recruits that used to be pretty rare but it's an indication that Sendek has ASU headed in the right direction.

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“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

Gaddabout

The thing about basketball is you only need to land two or three high quality players (not superstars) to give a program some steam. Especially guards. If you get great guard play from the starters and the bench, you always have a shot at going to the NCAA tournament.

So I guess Sendek doesn't mind whiffing on a lot of these guys right now, and he always seems to have a back up plan.

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Before I saw him, I could figure things out. He was the first guy I saw close-up and just didn't get what he was doing. Josh Freese on Vinnie Colaiuta

Russ Smith

Stover is the perfect recruit because he's a good student, and he's not some kid like Sidney that has no interest in college he's got no delusions at the moment that he'll be a lottery pick after 1 year in college.

Pretty much everyone in the Pac 10 is on him, Cal, Stanford etc, for that reason he's got the size and athletic ability to eventually be a pretty good player but it'll probably take him 4 years of college to get that talent out.

You have to get kids like that mixed in with kids like Harden.


Forgot to add, the beauty of a kid like Stover is he's not good enough now to scare off other recruits later.

__________________
“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo