Bruin Recruiting: Prep News Roundup (5/24)

By Bruin Basketball Report

Prep News Roundup is published every Monday.  

Commits

here haven’t been this many questions surrounding UCLA’s basketball program since Ben Howland arrived seven years ago. Perhaps the 2010 signing class will have some answers. ESPN ranked it the No. 15 class in the nation, largely in part to Washington center Josh Smith and Mater Dei guard Tyler Lamb. OC Register 5/20

Recruits

Top 10 national recruit Terrence Jones decided to sign a financial aid package from Kentucky on Wednesday to play basketball next season. This means Jones is not fully committed to Kentucky, which is no surprise considering the bizarre course his recruitment process has run and his posturing throughout. Jones verbally committed to Washington in April, then signed an aid package with Kentucky on Wednesday. Neither of those moves are official and binding for him. The aid package will be available to him should he decide to sign a letter of intent with Kentucky. Seattle PI 5/19

I'm not buying that Terrence Jones was motivated solely by the idea of a bigger national stage at Kentucky. Or the idea that the Wildcats are a better fit for his style of play. And I certainly wonder about the people who surround Jones today, including his summer coaches, because they feel a lot like a pack of guys sucked into the jet stream of grandeur they found drafting behind the kid.  We're being told the chapter on Jones recruitment is closed. Nothing more to say. Nothing more to see. Move along, right? Except, Kentucky coach John Calipari is involved. Oregon Live 5/20

Branden Dawson is many things: affable, charismatic and a nationally known high school basketball prospect, to name a few. He is not a revisionist.  “I was a bad kid,” said the 17-year-old from Gary after a tournament game earlier this month in Franklin. “I was a snot-nosed kid when I was 9 or 10, running around doing things I shouldn’t be doing and getting in trouble.” The fighting with classmates and being disrespectful changed, Dawson said, when he realized where basketball could take him. Though there have been some rough spots along the way, “B.J” — as Branden James Dawson is known to friends — is ranked No. 17 in the junior class by Scout.com. Indy Star 5/23

On Easter morning, less than a week after accepting the job as St. John's basketball coach, Steve Lavin's cellphone buzzed. The caller was Ed Gonzalez, the coach at Brooklyn's Bishop Laughlin Memorial High. Mr. Gonzalez had never met Mr. Lavin, but he figured he'd leave the new coach a message of congratulations. To his surprise, Mr. Lavin not only picked up the phone, he asked Mr. Gonzalez if he wanted to meet for lunch. That afternoon. A few days later, when Mr. Lavin's new St. John's business cards came in, the coach wasn't pleased. The issue: His personal cellphone number had been left off. With the help of a student assistant, he wrote it, by hand, on all 300 of the cards. Wall Street Journal 5/24