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Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
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Friday / March 29.
  • ***Undefeated Big East powers Cincinnati and South Florida are preparing for an Oct. 15 battle on ESPN. Read about it here.***

    Greg Schiano says he’s “hoping” that true freshman QB Tom Savage will start Saturday against Texas Southern in the Homecoming game.

    “I hope he does. He has been practicing for two days now. I guess the only way that would preclude him from playing is if something took a turn in the other direction. Right now, he is on the way up, Schiano said Monday.

    Savage suffered a concussion in the fourth quarter of the win against Florida International Sept. 19.

    Doron Lamb is coming off an official visit to Oklahoma this weekend and has several other visits planned.

    The Queens, N.Y. native and Oak Hill (Va.) Academy guard will visit Kansas the weekend of Oct. 16 and a visit for Arizona is tentatively set for the weekend of Oct. 23.

    “Then we’ll just have to wait and see what happens after that,” said his father, Calvin Lamb, who took the Oklahoma trip with his son.

    St. John’s, UConn and Kentucky are also in the mix.

    “He still wants to see Kentucky. You only get five [visits] so we’ll have to see,” Calvin said.

    He added: “I don’t think he has a favorite right now.”

    As for the Oklahoma visit, Calvin said all went well. Harrison Barnes, the No. 2 prospect in the Class of 2010, was also on the visit. Lamb and Barnes will be together again for the Kansas visit for “Late Night in the Phog.”

    Dontae Johnson, a 6-foot-3, 185-pound senior safety at The Pennington (N.J.) School, has verbally committed to North Carolina State.

    Johnson chose the Wolfpack over Maryland and UConn.

    “I called N.C. State today and told them,” Johnson said Sunday night. “I had a gut feeling from sitting down and visiting and talking to the coaches. I just felt comfortable there.”

    Johnson visited the campus twice, once last spring and again in the summer.

    Rod Odom took his final official visit to Boston College this weekend and is now set to decide among four schools.

    The 6-foot-8, 195-pound Odom out of Concord (Mass.) Middlesex says he will choose one of the following four schools: Arizona, Boston College, Vanderbilt or West Virginia.

    “I’m pretty much done taking visits,” Odom said Sunday afternoon. “I’m just looking to talk things over with my family the next couple of days.”

    Odom, a Long Island native, says there is no favorite.

    “I wouldn’t say there’s any favorite,” he said. “Every school has real good things to offer. At this point they’re all pretty much even.”

    Wondering how Rutgers coach Greg Schiano spent his bye week?

    Traveling around the Eastern seaboard watching recruits, that’s hows.

    Schiano was in Florida Friday night and back in New Jersey Saturday afternoon.

    “You have to love high school football,” Schiano told The Associated Press Friday night.

    Rutgers (3-1, 0-1 Big East) is off this week and hosts Texas Southern for Homecoming Oct. 10.

    On Friday, Schiano took an eight-seat chartered plane to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. to watch the top two teams in the nation, No. 1 St. Thomas Aquinas of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., against No. 2 Byrnes High of Duncan, S.C.

    Michael Gilchrist, the consensus No. 1 player in the Class of 2011, is making an unofficial visit to Villanova this weekend.

    The 6-foot-7 Somerdale, N.J., native, who plays for Elizabeth (N.J.) St. Patrick, also visited Villanova’s campus last year.

    “What we are hoping to get out of this visit is more of the academic side,” Cindy Richardson, Gilchrist’s mother, told Keith Pompey of the Philly Inquirer earlier this week. “We already know what Michael is going to do for that program. . . . So we want to know what Villanova is going to do for Michael.

    “We are going to find out how they are going to support Michael from a basketball standpoint and academic standpoint.”

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