LJ Rose Leaning to the Longhorns

Basketball recruiting news on UT website, what is going here?

Excellent news Trips. I used to be a member at Second Baptist before moving north. I’ve kept up with LJ Rose’s career though.

If Rick can land Myck and LJ in back to back years, he has his recruiting mojo back. Rick is a witch. Sometimes I wonder if Mack really is the best recruiter on campus.

I hope we land LJ, his game reminds of Derrick Rose. High praise I know, but LJ can ball.

TJ, DJ, AJ, and now possibly LJ. We are smoking some J’s.

Don’t forget PJ.

JD Lewis!

I’ll sleep well at night if Rose joins Ridley in the fold.

Just to plug, check out March to March as, well, March gets closer.

The post Kevin is referring to is here: http://marchtomarch.fantake.com/2011/02/05/rasheed-sulaimon-news/

Eddie Reese is the best recruiter on campus.

Funny thing is when you are picking the best you have to include multiple sports right now in Austin. Anyone want to rank from top to bottom the recruiting prowess of these staffs:

 Volleyball, Men’s Tennis, Men’s and Women’s Swimming, Men’s Track, Men’s Basketball, and Football.

Davey, shouldn’t Men’s baseball be included in that as well?

I’ve been told the same thing from someone who works with LJ’s dad… LJ likes the Horns.

I’ve watched LJ for years. He’s really good, more DJ Augustin, but with height. Not a great leaper. Wouldn’t say he is super quick or an elite athlete. Defense is definately a liability. Not saying he can’t guard people, but a point guard with a little quickness can give him fits, will get by him and cause havoc in the lane.

Still a very nice player. Makes good decisions. Doesn’t need to score to be effective. Has a nice jumper, not elite. Needs to get stronger (lots of kids in high school do) and needs to improve his range.

As for playing the 2 guard: Watched LJ play against Sheldon McCellan – Sheldon ate his lunch. LJ had trouble checking Sheldon. Too physical for LJ. Eyes don’t lie.

Good kid, really good player. But defense will be his biggest concern.

This news is unexpected. LJ has been rated one of the top players for ‘12 for a while now, but earlier reports had us slow-playing him, not going really hard after him. Given that he’s in Houston (and with all of the sick talent in the Greater Houston area in the next couple of years), that supposed report made no sense at all.

At that time, I was starting to wonder if Rick had, in fact, somehow lost his way in recruiting (hey, if it can happen to Mack Brown, it can happen to anybody). We’d just lost out on Isaiah Austin, Daniels had de-committed, and even Kabongo had de-committed for that week or so. Then, he gets a commitment from Cameron Ridley for ’12…and now we lead for LJ Rose? Wow. And, making progress in locking down Houston talent is a really good sign. (It looks like Duke leads for Rasheed Sulaimon, though, which hurts us…but not as badly as it would were it Kansas).

As for Rose having trouble checking McClellan, I try to remember that in high school, age difference is a big factor…much bigger than in college. Unless you’re Lebron James, the difference between a HS Jr and a HS Sr can be pretty huge, from a physical maturity standpoint. I didn’t watch that particular matchup, but in general, I don’t worry as much about whether a kid can lock down an older top-50 player on defense. If he’s got the want-to, the desire to play D, Rick can teach him how to play it well enough. If that’s one thing Rick has always been able to do, it’s that. Plus, we have Todd Wright.

ut_bkc

Forgot baseball, but an argument could be made that baseball does less with more than football or basketball. The simple fact that Texas has struggled to put together an 8 man line-up that can consistently score runs points to either issues with how the team is being coached or the players recruited.

I understand the argument is that the Disch is not exactly a park for hitters, but the roster isn’t exactly loaded with guys who are line drive hitters and speedsters.

How much do you know about point guard Andrew Harrison out of Fort Bend Travis? I hear this kid has the potential to be the class of 2013’s #1 overall player.

“Not saying he can’t guard people, but a point guard with a little quickness can give him fits, will get by him and cause havoc in the lane.”

Could be a problem, but if he’s “long” (a word that I’m still not sure I embrace as opposed to trusty, traditional adjectives like “tall”) you can teach the nuance of playing off the quick guys that extra half-step to protect the drive but still leave you in decent close-out position. Barnes has done a great job of that with this year’s crew, if a kid buys into to doing the work — and is smart enough to understand the distance/angles — lack of elite quickness isn’t a devastating liability for a defender.

nerf herder said: February 5th, 2011 at 5:27 pm
How much do you know about point guard Andrew Harrison out of Fort Bend Travis? I hear this kid has the potential to be the class of 2013′s #1 overall player.

He has a twin brother that isn’t far behind in talent either.

Davey,

Damn you beat me to it. Reese is the best recruiter and the best coach of any sport on the 40 acres. And really, I don’t know that it is even close. Get well soon Eddie.

Baseball is also unique in that the scholarships are SO limited and there’s competition from the minor league draft for so many top candidates. I don’t know men’s tennis and track’s scholarship situation, but I do know these athletes don’t generally have the allure of the minor league draft as in baseball.

starting to:

Really surprised to hear that McClllelan out-physicaled somebody. I thought he was more of a finesse player or did he put on weight this season? He’s impossible to find tape on so do you think you could give a player breakdown that’s more insightful than the redundant phrasing they use on ESPN or Rivals?

It’s hard to argue with the success of the baseball program. Golf on the other hand is a total failure

i’m late to the party and see that nobody mentioned BJ Tyler in the list of ‘killer J’s". he was a very talented pg from penders’ runnin horns days.

Quincy Miller and Isaiah Austin are both tweeting that Rose and Julius Randle are headed to Baylor. fwiw…

http://twitter.com/qmillertime

Just an FYI – 2012 target G LJ Rose is transferring from Second Baptist to Westbury Christian.

I doubt that affects his recruitment in any way. Just passing along info.