Pistol

Mario McKinney has had a number of visitors in September: SLU, Xavier, DePaul, Illinois, K-State, Arkansas, Wichita State, and Drake. Mizzou and Bradley have also shown interest. He has been out to DePaul on an unofficial visit while attending Elite Camp there. Like @3star_recruit said in the 2018 thread, McKinney is thought to be the best local guard prospect in the 2019 class and hasn't developed a jumper yet. He's still a big-time scorer who takes it to the rim and loves transition. He distributes the ball well, plays with a ton of energy, and is years ahead of his peers defensively. He's listed at 6-1 or 6-2 and anywhere from 165 to 180.

Good timing. I had added both of these guys to the interest list just yesterday. Reece appears to be just hitting radars recruiting-wise (he's grown a couple inches and already had a nice skill set). McKinney has already had a big number of schools visiting him and/or showing interest.

Henriquez is a shooter; he attempted 302 three-pointers in his two UCF seasons, making 114 (37.7%) of them. His percentage rose from 35.8% to 39.4%, so that's a good trend. He's a fearless player and can do more than just shoot, especially given his 6-6, 210-lb. frame. Three-pointers accounted for about 2/3 of his shot attempts. Bess is not much of a shooter. He gets his points going to the basket. He attempted 11 total three-pointers in two seasons at MSU, connecting on 2 of them. Even though he's slightly smaller than Henriquez (6-5, 205), he's much more likely to go to the rim to score or dish whereas AH will create from the perimeter. Foreman is a traditional college power forward banger type, so he's nothing like Allen. Allen is maybe a bit more of a pure shooter than Henriquez, and he's much smaller (6-2). If we're really going to use Goodwin as a PG (or point forward), then we will need multiple perimeter threats. Henriquez is a great start and I'm hoping Moore pans out as another tall shooter who will spread the floor and create matchup issues at both ends. Bishop will be a useful role player on this team, and Bartley might have found a role for himself had he stayed, but I guess the potential of losing minutes was too great for him.

We'll never compete with the Big Ten in terms of how much presence their fans and media people have. Never. Villanova just won a national championship but if he visited there and Nebraska or any Big Ten school back-to-back, Nebraska would show more social media "love" for Allen and it wouldn't even be close. If that's what a recruit cares about, then Nebraska is going to be more attractive than SLU. Allen definitely likes to engage on Twitter. How important that feedback is to him remains to be seen. He would be the perfect third piece in a class with Goodwin and French, assuming we can land the latter. If not, though, both Anthony Mack and Matt Turner are solid options and we're in the mix on both. It's about six weeks before the fall signing period. It's heating up. I love it.

Yes, Kentrevious Jones, who stands 6-11, 280 right now. He's supposedly committed to shedding some more weight before college, but he's a pure center. XU might see Stockard as more of a PF in college. They still have two scholarships to give for 2017, looking at a potential 6-man class. They only have 11 scholarships used right now after the Eddie Ekiyor sudden transfer, and might be down to 10 scholarship players this season if Myles Davis doesn't play (suspension). Jalen Reynolds left early, and Larry Austin, Brandon Randolph, and Makinde London all transferred elsewhere for more minutes, and Kamall Richards, a JUCO transfer, left before ever playing.

Other notes, from the interest list: Christian Negron's final five are DePaul, Oregon State, Bradley, Loyola-Chicago, and UAB. Different than I'd have projected a few months ago, but these are the five after him the hardest right now. SLU was never really in it, and he was a Crews recruit, anyway. Oral Roberts and CMU were out to see Daniel Farris at Vashon. Ra Kpedi just visited Vermont. Jamal Nixon is getting interest from and visiting lower-division schools. I'm taking him off the interest list. Xavier was out last week to see Levi Stockard at Vashon (and 2019 G Mario McKinney). He visited XU a few weeks ago along with Jared Ridder, who has already committed. Looks like Alonzo Verge is attending Thornton HS this year, his senior year. Not sure if he's been cleared for eligibility yet.

On paper right now, SLU and UNLV have the most minutes to offer French. Marquette has those other forwards who committed and UMass has no available scholarships left. Obviously there are transfers and other moving pieces, but you have to like where we stand with this one. Other 2017 notes: Elijah Childs has visited Indiana State and Central Arkansas and plans to visit Bradley and NKU. Nojel Eastern was at Michigan State this weekend. Mizzou is coming on strong, as it had appeared that it was coming down to MSU, Ohio State, and Purdue. Tavieon Hollingsworth picked up offers from La Salle and UAB. As @Ibruce says, Anthony Mack's recruitment is indeed blowing up. Georgia and St. Bonaventure offered. Georgia Tech is coming on strong. Florida, Indiana, and Tennessee are suddenly very involved. Duquesne, Wyoming, Memphis, and SLU have been highly involved for a few months now. He has visited Wyoming with his only official visit so far. SLU is next (October 6), then Georgia (October 15), and then he has two still to use. There's no leader at this point, and certainly things have gotten more complicated here. Florida and Indiana have offered his Blair teammate Deng Gak, so playing together is attractive to them. He likes Coach Fox at Georgia and Pastner at GT. It's a good thing we got on his calendar when we did. Mack's teammate Matt Turner will visit SLU with him; Deng Gak is the biggest prospect at Blair right now, so maybe playing with him at the next level is more attractive, but SLU is the only school to offer both Mack and Turner at this point. Granted, both project as shooting guards at the next level, so that's another reason they probably won't go as a package. Turner recently met with Pitt's staff and said it went well. Speaking of Pitt, Aaron Wheeler is going to take an official visit there. Arkansas is now in the mix, and he's also hearing from Purdue and Creighton a lot.

One of my coworkers came in this morning and asked, "Okay, so what's with this new Billiken? Let me see him. I heard about the disaster on Bob & Tom." Bob & Tom!

No. Ikechukwu Eke and Theo John are the bigs who committed to Marquette. John is a fringe-top 100 player and Eke is just a bit outside. These are comparable recruits to French. It's possible that Marquette prioritized them over French for some reason, but it's also possible that they simply committed first. As for Minnesota, the new commit is a guard so it's not necessarily that he took French's spot from a position standpoint. That was, however, Minnesota's last scholarship for 2017, so without a known transfer at this point, they'd be oversubscribed with a French commitment. Sometimes rankings can react to these things and make assumptions that French is maybe worth bumping below the other guys. As far as I'm concerned, this does not impact how we should feel about him. Plenty of scouting reports already say he plays like a guy with a chip on his shoulder; this certainly can't hurt in that regard - he had deep ties to the Minnesota staff.

Still needs a nose, at least a visible one.

2019 offer list updates: Vernon Carey, Jr. is now ranked #5 by ESPN, #8 by Rivals, #12 by Scout, #6 by 247 - it's good that we were one of the early offers, but they continue to mount and his interest list is basically "All". It's going to be tough to stay involved here. Kofi Cockburn is said to have grown another inch, putting his current listing at 6-11, 248. Again, good that we were one of his first two offers but that list will explode. UNLV offered yesterday. Malik Hall transferred from Metea Valley in Naperville to Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas and officially reclassified as a 2019 recruit. He took an unofficial to Illinois this summer. I hate to see transfers this early, and with a basketball factory like Sunrise, I wouldn't be surprised to see another move before 2019. Aundre Hyatt is another player who started as a 2018 recruit and reclassified despite strong academic performance. He transferred to the Miller School in Virginia. He's up to a dozen offers and ranked in the 30-ish range on rankings that go higher than 25 for the 2019 class. St. John's, Providence, Brown, Virginia, VT, Syracuse, Miami, USC, and VCU have been out to see him this month. Maxwell Lorca-Lloyd played for Chile's U-18 team this summer. He's got offers from SLU, Seton Hall, Penn State, and St. Peter's, and mounting interest. He's raw at 6-10, but he's a top 50 name on Rivals. Isaiah Stewart received offers from Niagara and Buffalo in September, but it's probably too little, too late for those regional programs because he also has offers from SLU, Florida, Tennessee, Syracuse, GW, and Wake Forest. He's 6-8 now, and an absolutely explosive athlete. He was dominant as a freshman, putting up huge numbers at the varsity level. UMass, Maryland, Cal, Brown, Colgate, Iona, were out to check on Bryce Wills this month. He has 14 offers and a lot of high-level interest, as he's another top-30ish name on our offer list. Still no offer from SLU, but it's worth noting that EJ Liddell has been working out with Corey Frazier.

This is absolutely true. I'll also echo what others have said in that Ramey has been a "prospect" of note since before middle school, and that his and his father's eyes have always been set on the biggest possible stage for him. How big a program that ends up being remains to be seen, but the important thing is that it has never been SLU's fault if the program does not appear to be one of his leaders. It's just not what they've ever wanted. If Ford manages to make SLU even one of a dozen-plus contenders when he starts to trim his list, that will be a coup. Most of us had written off Gordon a while ago for the same reason, that he seemed to have his eyes on the biggest possible stage, with KU rumored to be the dream program. Ford and Tate have gotten us back into this race, which in itself is quite an accomplishment. Watson is another guy who will have options, and because he's a 2018 name, he didn't need to be Ford's first item of business when taking the job. The 2017 class was and is more pressing. He knows that. There's no disrespect here, either. This 2017 class has a chance to be special and Ford has only been on the job for about six months. With an extra year and the hire of Tate, there's no reason we can't make some noise in 2018. Trust the process.

Thanks. It's really just a matter of being organized. Several years ago on this board, I just decided we needed to start getting more organized in terms of recruiting discussions. There'd be a thread about one guy here, a rumor there, etc. - but I thought it'd work better if we kept information organized by class and made sure to keep a list for each class - offers and interest, with a third list for names I haven't confirmed SLU interest but may become prospects (usually local). I keep that all on a Google doc. Then I just check in from time to time with Twitter and Google searches, update my sheet, and post updates here. That's it. I also have a running conversation going with a few friends who went to high school and SLU with me, as well as a couple other off-board conversations always going with other interested SLU alums. My HS alma mater is Chaminade, so I usually have a bit more to say when CCP prospects come up, given that those friends also went there and stay at least somewhat connected, and my brother teaches there. So it's nothing more than diligence and organization, and having buddies who share the same interests.

So Marquette and Minnesota were his other scheduled visits besides SLU, and after he was at MU, they get two other PF commits and before he goes to UM, they get another PF commit. Yeah, that looks really good for us. I guess he could always visit the other three - VCU, UMass, UNLV - but like billikentim says, VCU just put another PF in their column. I feel good about this one. Good news, guys- thanks for sharing.

Jadis White is the 2018 kid who appears to be a (the?) PG. He's 6-1, 160. I believe he plays for MOKAN Elite on the AAU circuit. Jordan Rayner is another 2018 guard; I don't know much about his game, though, and whether he has potential to run the point. Keyyaun Batchman is a 2019 PG. It's unclear whether he'll continue to play a point behind White or if he's more of a combo guard. He played on the St. Louis Eagles' U-15 squad alongside Keelan Handy, a 2019 SF at Chaminade. So I agree that ballhandling is still an unknown, but they do have at least a couple guys to possibly fill the position. It looks like 2018 could be another strong class for CCP, with Davis, White, and Hellems, along with Rayner and Henry Gladson, Will's younger brother. We'll know a lot more about the relative strength of this class in a few months when they are back on the floor but there's at least a good amount of potential here - not that I expect ever see another class as good as 2016, or player on the level of Tatum. I've heard rumors that Davis has grown another inch or two, which would put him at 6-6 or 6-7. In addition to those two 2019 players above, they have a one or two freshmen that have a chance to play up in Luke Kasubke and possibly Dylan Branson. I'm not sure what the status of the Euro (Marin Vrucinic) and Canadian players are at this time; they were around last season but Vrucinic, who will be a senior, didn't play much and the Canadian kid wasn't eligible yet and I'm not sure what class he is. I think Reggie Crawford will be the only other senior.