Bruin Recruiting: Prep News Roundup (8/28)

By Bruin Basketball Report

Prep News Roundup is published every Monday

Recruits

Lake Oswego's Kevin Love dropped a spot, and South Medford's Kyle Singler stayed put in the most recentrivals.com Class of 2007 high school basketball rankings. Singler remained the fourth-best prospect in his class, and Love dropped one spot from sixth to seventh, according to rivals, which released its rankings earlier this month. Scout.com, rivals' chief competitor, ranks Love No. 2 and Singler No. 6. Most experts agree both players had exceptional summer seasons on the Amateur Athletic Union circuit. Singler, who played for a Nike-sponsored team, has drawn praise from coaches and recruiting experts for increasing his talent level in the five months since the high school season concluded. Oregonian 8/22

Scout.com 2008 Top 50 Rankings: Scout.com’s No. 3 spot goes to the top west coast prospect, Jrue Holiday. Talk about a major league scoring threat, Holiday didn’t take a single vacation all summer long. He was consistently good, clearly talented and the game can come very easy to him. Tiger Rag 8/22

Josh Southern, a 6-foot-9, 240-pound senior big man at Saginaw High (Mich.), verbally committed to Boston College. Southern, the 74th-ranked player in the country by Scout.com, chose the Eagles over Kentucky and Tennessee. Southern averaged 16 points and 16 rebounds per game last season. He is a cousin of BC director of basketball operations Preston Murphy, who hails from Saginaw and played for BC coach Al Skinner at Rhode Island. Boston Herald 8/23

Basketball standout Nathen Garth looks forward to playing in the Kevin Johnson Classic this December at Sacramento High School. But the 6-foot-2, 160-pound junior guard won't be playing for Capital Christian High School, which he helped to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division V championship game as a freshman and sophomore. Garth is enrolled at Woodrow Wilson High in Dallas, and its boys basketball team visits Sacramento for the annual tournament Dec. 15-17. Garth said he decided to transfer to the Texas school to be closer to his father, Tony, a software consultant who works in Dallas and Los Angeles. Sacramento Bee 8/24

"It was a two-horse race for No. 1 between DeMarcus Cousins and Renardo Sidney," Rivals.com national basketball recruiting analyst Jerry Meyer said. "They're both skilled power forwards. They're that same type of player."The 6-foot-9, 234-pound Cousins' strength, athleticism and size put him into the discussion for the No. 1 spot, but his explosiveness and ability to play in transition separated him from the pack."He's an inside and outside scoring threat," Meyer said. "What stands out about him is how good he is in transition. He can do things going full speed to the rim."Sidney also stood out as a power forward who can excel as a passer. During the AAU season, he was able to get the ball to center Kevin Love, the No. 7 prospect in the class of 2008, on a regular basis."You can run the offense through Sidney," Meyer said. "He's similar to Cousins, but with Cousins there's a little more athleticism. Renardo isn't quite as explosive, but he's a skilled player. Gator Bait 8/24

Scout.com Top 10 2009: We selected Renardo Sidney as the top prospect in the Class of 2009 but it wasn’t a landslide by any means. Sidney gets the nod but DeMarcus Cousins is in his rear view mirror waving hello. Back in the spring of 2005 at the Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions, Sidney turned in a simply brilliant performance while playing with the MBA Hoops. That singular effort vaulted him to the top of the rankings where he’s sat ever since. Sidney, due to transfer rules, did not play high school basketball as a freshman and now the talk is that he’s likely to end up at Lakewood (Calif.) Artesia this season. He’s transferred AAU teams and high schools which is a lot of moves for a young player. The Devil's Den 8/25

Effective with the graduating class of 2008, every incoming college freshman will need to have passed 16 NCAA core classes instead of 14 to gain athletic eligibility.That means passing four years of high school English, three years of math, two years of science, plus an additional English, math or science class. Add two years of social science and four additional classes in foreign language or social science. And students still have to earn a qualifying score on their SAT or ACT standardized tests.Students interested in playing sports in college had better be focused on academics from the moment they step onto their high school campuses because any Ds or Fs early in their careers would force them to play catch-up, and some won't be able to recover."It's going to be a wake-up call for a lot of kids," said Larry Drew Jr., a junior guard for the Woodland Hills Taft basketball team. "It's a make-or-break situation. No more coasting. Some get the concept, others don't. You have to do well in school." L.A. Times 8/27

Simeon All-American point guard Derrick Rose has a list of five colleges (in alphabetical order): DePaul, Indiana, Kansas, Memphis and UCLA. Illinois is out....A couple of the schools on the list even surprised Reggie. ''I had no idea he was interested in UCLA,'' Reggie said. ''I didn't even know Derrick was talking with Kevin Love [the 6-9 All-America forward from Lake Oswego, Ore., who committed to UCLA]. But great players want to play with great players. And Love is a big man who knows he'll get the ball playing with Derrick. Chicago Sun-Times 8/27

Chicago Simeon High senior Derrick Rose has narrowed his list of prospective colleges to five: Kansas University, Memphis, DePaul, Indiana and UCLA. Rose’s brother and AAU coach, Reggie Rose, told the Chicago Sun-Times that Derrick, a 6-foot-4 point guard, is in the process of setting up five campus visits. “The decision was made by Derrick and the family,” Reggie Rose said of paring the list to five — a list that doesn’t include Illinois. “We felt that these were five schools that were a fit for him. We’ve contacted all five and are setting up visits. Lawrence Journal-World 8/27

(BruinBasketballReport.com)

(photo credit: USA Basketball)