DWKB

Lawrence Journal World:

Self is still looking for another big man in recruiting. Dallas AAU coach Jazzy Hartwell said big man J’Mison Morgan would visit with new LSU coach Trent Johnson, then decide whether he’ll remain a future Tiger. If Morgan opts out of his letter of intent, he again would consider KU and UCLA — teams on his original list.

Of recruiting, Self said: “We’ve always been fairly popular. We’ve got some guys calling us now. It (winning title) is not a huge benefit now because there’s not much left out there (in class of ’08). We’ve got to strike while the iron is hot and have a great fall.”

Renz

If LSU decides to hold Morgan to his LOI then he has to sit out a year, right? Or does he lose a year of eligibility?

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Russ Smith

He could appeal, the rule says a coaching change is not grounds for getting out of an LOI but there's precedent. Ryan Hollins signed with St. Louis, Romar quit for UW, and Hollins asked out. St. Louis refused, he appealed and the NCAA granted it, and he went to UCLA without sitting out a year. Happens fairly often though it's not a guarantee.

I expect Morgan to stay at LSU though, there wsa a story Friday where JOhnson was asked about the assistants and he said he'd like to conviince interim coach Butch Pierre to remain on staff he's local, knows the program and would be a terrific guy to have on staff. What Johnson didn't say is that Morgan's publicly stated he wanted Pierre to be named head coach and since he wasn't he might ask out of his LOI. So Morgan likes Pierre, Johnson gets the job and immediately says he wants to hire Pierre, a guy he readily admits he had never met before he took the LSU job. Basically it's obvious Johnson realized his top recruit would ask out if he didn't retain Pierre so my guess is they'll keep Pierre and Morgan will stay.

And he's no lock for UCLA even if he does opt out as DWKB said Kansas was a finalist too and while UCLA has more immediate PT available that may not be his deciding factor.

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Russ Smith

Looks like Beasley is announcing today he's coming out.

And the Daily News has a story that says USC's Davon Jefferson might file without an agent. The problem there is there are published reports that Jefferson's already in trouble academically and if those are true there's no way he'll be able to test the waters, do all the workouts and stay eligible.
So it would appear if he declares he's gone.

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Russ Smith

Daily News is reporting Love will announce he's gone. Met with parents over the weekend, Howland said his sources say sure lottery pick possibly as high as 4th overall(?). Given that they said it's a foregone conclusion.

I'm surprised the feedback was THAT positive, 4th overall for Love seems high.

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Russ Smith

Goodman of Fox is reporting Love will declare Thursday.

There's actually speculation now that Collison is thinking about staying one more year, in fact there are those who claim Westbrook is more likely to go now than Collison. I still think in the end DC goes, RW stays.

I also hear that Ryan anderson is following through with testing the waters but will probably stay at Cal. One of their recruits just got released from his LOI said he decided to leave after Braun was fired, but everything I hear is that hiring Monty has jumpstarted recruiting(Brendan Lane added Cal back to his list immediately) and that Anderson is excited about playing for Monty.

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Russ Smith

Way too many rumors.

latest is love won't announce tomorrow is waiting until next week.

Collison, Shipp and Westbrook will all declare tomorrow with no agent. Collison figures to go, Shipp figures to come back, Westbrook is on the fence nobody seems to know.

Also rumor has Aboya announcing tomorrow he's ending his basketball career to focus on gradschool either at UCLA or somewhere else. he's applying at UCLA but not guaranteed acceptance there's some thought if he does get accepted he'll then ask Ben if he can come back and presumably Howland would say yes.

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