Marquette Recruiting, Notre Dame Recruiting, Pittsburgh Recruiting, Providence Recruiting, Rutgers Recruiting, Seton Hall Recruiting, St. John's Recruiting, West Virginia Recruiting

THE PLAYAZ JOE BROWN MEMORIAL NEWS & NOTES

The Joe Brown Memorial Tournament, run by the NJ Playaz Basketball Club, is taking place today and tomorrow at City Sports on 4 in Englewood (NJ). Sixteen teams have converged on New Jersey to compete for the championship. With the top teams of the NJ Playaz competing at the Nike Peach Jam, the event has lost some of it’s star power from the host program. Still, the NY Panthers (recent champs of the Hoop Group Summer Classic East), Juice All-Stars, Team Philly, Connecticut Basketball Club, New Heights and others have sent teams to Englewood to compete.

Matt Whitfield got there bright and early for NBE and he has sent along some notes from the early action…

- Fred Hill of Rutgers and assistant Darren Savino are here. Billy Hahn (West Virginia), Glenn Braica (St. John’s) and Aki Collins (Marquette) have also been spotted from the Big East.

- The first games of the morning have the NY Panthers on one floor and one of the two Connecticut Basketball Club teams on another court. Andre Drummond and Tavon Allen are a couple players to take note for CBC. Drummond is re-classifying to the class of 2012. He looks college ready right now. He is 6-foot-9 and much more chiseled than a normal high school sophomore, could pass for a college sophomore.

- Tavon Allen is a 6-foot-6 guard from Hillhouse (CT) High School. He told NBE he is hearing from Providence, UMass and Robert Morris.

- Rutgers and St. John’s making sure they are seen when Ashton Pankey is taking the floor. West Virginia is making the effort to see both Pankey and Majok Majok, who is here with the other Connecticut Basketball Club.

- Majok Majok, who is attending South Ken (CT), tells NBE he is 6-foot-8 1/2 and has offers from Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Seton Hall from the Big East with Virginia, Virginia Tech, Arkansas, Stanford, Harvard and Missouri offering from outside the Big East.

- All of the Big East schools have spent time checking out Sterling Gibbs as well.

- Pankey and Majok squared off and that is where Fred Hill was watching, along with all the assistants representing Big East schools made their way as well.