Connecticut Recruiting, Georgetown News, Rutgers News, Seton Hall News, St. John's Recruiting, Transfers

BIG EAST NEWS & NOTES (5/8/2008)

This weekend at the fabulous Hoop Magic Sports Academy in Chantilly (VA) will the be inaugural DC Assault ‘Take Your Best Shot’ AAU Tournament. Ron Bailey of i95ballerz.com previews the event as DC Assault’s Take Your Best Shot is a Sign of Things to Come for area hoops. Here is the Tournament Schedule and Information for those interested. Anthony Jaskulski will be covering the action Friday night and Saturday for the NBE Basketball Report and we will also have a correspondent (or two) at the Hoop Group’s Southern Jam Fest on the University of Virginia campus.

Here are some Big East news and notes, including an update on another Georgetown transfer. The selection of a new home for former Florida player Jonathan Mitchell is nearing after a couple Big East visits. St. John’s lost out on the chase of a JUCO guard and the Hartford Courant has an excellent story on the earliest commitments ever accepted by Jim Calhoun as they continue their path to Storrs.

While in high school at Mount Vernon, Jonathan Mitchell was a coveted recruit of several Big East schools. However, Mitchell opted for Florida and the SEC, but after two years of limited playing time, Mitchell, a 6’7 forward, is interested in returning to a school closer to home and has visited Seton Hall and Rutgers in the last week. Like his trip to SHU, Mitchell Enjoyed the RU Trip (Zagsblog.net) but a third school might also be under consideration now, too. Marshall, where Donnie Jones is the head coach, might get a visit from Mitchell in the near future. Jones was the associate head coach at Florida through 2007.

Mitchell’s uncle, Herb, expects a decision by the middle of next week. Seton Hall definitely has a lack of forwards on their roster, while Rutgers has good friend Mike Coburn on the roster. We will see what happens…

Georgetown has another player leaving the program, this time sophomore guard Jeremiah Rivers has decided to look elsewhere. With Georgetown’s Rivers to Transfer (Washington Post), he joins Octavious Spann, Marc Egerson, Josh Thornton and Vernon Macklin on the way out of the program in recent years, leaving only DaJuan Summers and Jesse Sapp from the 2005 and 2006 recruiting classes brought in by John Thompson III.

Reports do indicate that Julian Vaughn will be coming to Georgetown after transferring from Florida State, but to this point, nothing has been made official.
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Despite recent additions of Ty Edmondson and Quincy Roberts, St. John’s was still on the trail of JUCO recruit Bobby Maze. However, the news of Maze to Tennessee (zagsblog.net) was reported yesterday by a local Knoxville newspaper.
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After their freshmen years of high school, Alex Oriakhi and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel committed to Jim Calhoun and the Connecticut basketball program. It was August 11, 2006, when they became the youngest commitments in the Calhoun-era at UConn. At the time, the Boston natives and BABC AAU teammates attended different schools. Now, both at the Tilton School in picturesque New Hampshire, Oriakhi and Coombs Continue their Road to UConn and Mike Anthony of the Hartford Courant has an in-depth look at life at the boarding school for the two UConn commits.

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