Duke and Xavier will tip off on Saturday at the Izod Center in a battle of Top 25 teams. Why are a team from North Carolina and a team from Ohio battling it out in a broken-down arena in New Jersey?
Recruiting, of course.
Both teams want to continue to draw on the rich talent pool in the New York/New Jersey area that includes nationally ranked powerhouses St. Benedict’s Prep of Newark (No. 2 in the PrepNation.com Poll); No. 4 St. Patrick of Elizabeth; No. 8 Lincoln of Brooklyn; and No. 11 St. Anthony of Jersey City.
“We are really recruiting that area harder than we ever had because of coach [Emanuel “Book”] Richardson and also what we are trying to accomplish here,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said Tuesday in a conference call.
Richardson is in his second year as an assistant under Miller and he has already paid dividends with the signing of former St. Raymond’s of the Bronx star Kevin Parrom, now at South Kent (Conn.).
“Kevin Parrom is a young person that signed a National Letter with us in November and we are excited about his talent and future with us,” Miller said.
Xavier has also offered scholarships to 2010 standouts Doron Lamb of Oak Hill and Jayvaughn Pinkston of Bishop Loughlin and Markus Kennedy of Apex Academy, as well as Jayon James and Fuquan Edwin of Paterson Catholic. In the Class of 2011, Xavier is highly involved 6-7 Sidiki Johnson of St. Raymond’s and 6-6 Angel Nunez of Cardinal Hayes.
Xavier also features freshman guard Terrell Holloway of Hempstead, N.Y., who is averaging 6.9 points and 2.3 rebounds and whom Miller likes because of his toughness.
” I think the one quality, we have Terrell Holloway, who’s a freshman in our program right now from the New York City area, they come to your program battle tested and also fearless in large part because there are so many competitive games that young people play in the New York City/metropolitan area,” MIller said. ” You grow up in middle school and you are playing in spring and summer on a competitive circuit many times, playing in an equally competitive circuit in a high school environment. And then when those same kids get to college, they know just about everybody on other teams, they played against a lot of them and they don’t come in with that deer-in-the-headlights look a lot of times.”
As for Duke, the Blue Devils already appeared at Madison Square Garden for the Coaches v. Cancer event, which they won last month against Michigan. In February, the Dukies return to play St. John’s at MSG.
The Duke roster includes several players with local ties, including junior forward Lance Thomas of St. Benedict’s and Greg Paulus of Syracuse. Duke also offered former St. Ben’s star Greg Echenique, who chose Rutgers over Duke, Pitt and other top programs.
