John Wall’s Crazy Recruitment Down to 2?

Written by Frankie Torres from http:// on May 11th, 2009 | 3 Comments

Photo by Patrick Greenfield / OregonLive.com

Being the top high school basketball prospect in the country isn’t easy. Just ask Word of God (NC) point guard John Wall; the nation’s top ranked high school player. Early on in the season Wall was not looked at as the top player as forwards Renardo Sidney and Derrick Favors battled for the spot for over a year. Wall had a breakout summer followed by a sensational senior year where he took over the top spot on both Rivals and Scout. He had a plethora of schools to choose from including Duke, Kansas, Memphis and Miami. Many thought that he would end up at nearby NC State. However, Wall never committed to the Wolfpack and has recently eliminated them from his potential suiters. Then Wall’s advisor and AAU coach Dwayne Clifton accepted a job at Baylor as an assistant coach. Many believe that their close bond would lead Wall to Waco, but now they are all but gone from his list.

There were a couple interviews with Wall but he never claimed any school was leading for him. That all changed in early March when Wall claimed that Memphis and then-coach John Calipari were the leaders in the sweepstakes. Then things took a major turn when Calipari left Memphis to be the coach at Kentucky, thus entering the Wildcats into the discussion and eliminating Memphis. The only problem for Calipari is that with 5- star point guard Eric Bledsoe recently committing, Kentucky has no scholarships left to offer. Unless Calipari, who is known as one of the top recruiters in all of college basketball, cuts some of his scholarship players.

Duke has also been a team at the top of Wall’s list. The Blue Devils are coming off their most impressive season in some time where they reached the Sweet 16. The only problem with Duke is that Wall is going to be a one-and-done player meaning after one season he’ll jump straight to the NBA. This isn’t really the ideal scenario for him because Duke coach Mike Kryzewski isn’t known for taking a lot of those type of players.

The darkhorse all throughout Wall’s recruitment has been the Miami Hurricanes. They were one of the first teams on his list and have stayed there ever since. Now Miami isn’t a traditional power like Duke or Kentucky but they are slowly building a competitive team in the ACC that a player like Wall might put over the top. Miami is also losing arguably the best player in the school’s history in Jack McClinton, so why not step right in and be the number one guy? Another thing heavily working in Miami’s favor is the surrounding area. In a recent article, Wall said he loved what he saw in Miami and who could blame him? Lexington and Durham aren’t exactly South Beach. Many Hurricane fans considered Wall’s visit a major success. Wall told scout.com,”I wasn’t really considering them that hard, but I hadn’t taken a visit there and I didn’t know how it was going to be and how the coaches were. After I took the visit it really opened my eyes up…I knew it was going to be nice in Florida, but didn’t know how it was school-wise and that all the players from different sports get along great.” Just being in the picture for Wall is huge for an up and coming program like the Canes. There are some rumblings that he may be choosing between Miami and Kentucky.

Nothing has been set in stone as of yet but we will definitely be keeping you posted on this wild recruitment.

Tags: Basketball, John Wall, Kentucky, Miami Hurricanes