November 2017 | Page 20 of 22 | Zagsblog
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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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Monday / December 9.
  • NEPTUNE, N.J. — Scottie Lewis hears regularly from the staffs at Kentucky, Duke and Florida, but after spending a recent weekend with Harvard coach Tommy Amaker, he’s now thinking outside the box about his recruitment.

    The 6-foot-5 Lewis, a small forward ranked No. 8 in the 2019 ESPN 60, said he and his Ranney teammates Bryan Antoine (No. 12 in 2019), Alex Klatsky and Chris Autino are talking about potentially joining forces at Harvard to start something new at the Ivy League school.

    “Yeah, just trying to basically do what we did at Ranney and bringing it all the way to Harvard,” Lewis told me Sunday at the Super Skillcase run by Train Impossible. “The great part about that is no one can say it was the wrong choice to go to Harvard. There’s so much within that campus and so much knowledge within those professors that there’s not a bad situation to go to Harvard. Just to create a story and feed on the legacy of the four freshmen going to Ranney and doing the same thing at a school like Harvard, it would just be a great story.”

    PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Paul Mulcahy, the 6-foot-5 point guard from Gill St. Bernard’s, sat courtside Sunday when Rutgers stunned St. John’s, 80-78, in a charity exhibition game.

    Rutgers is recruiting Mulcahy hard, and it probably didn’t hurt their cause that they knocked off a St. John’s team with NCAA Tournament aspirations.

    “Yeah, that was good, I was happy for them,” he told me courtside. “It should be a big year for them. This is the recruiting class that they kind of picked, with Geo [Baker] and Myles [Johnson]. Bu it was exciting.”

    Asked how hard Rutgers was recruiting him, Mulcahy said, “Pretty hard, I talk to them all the time. They could see me coming in and playing right away and helping them change the image of Rutgers basketball. It would be a big year for them, the 2019 class. They need a point guard. They don’t know if [junior] Corey [Sanders] is going to be here for much longer.”

    PISCATAWAY, N.J. — St. John’s guards are going to be a problem for the rest of the Big East.

    That was one big takeaway from Rutgers’ dramatic 80-78 victory over the Red Storm in Sunday’s charity exhibition game at the Rutgers Athletic Center that raised money for the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

    Rutgers was propelled by Deshawn Freeman’s 28 points, 12 rebounds and 3 assists and won the game on Issa Thiam’s putback with 2.8 seconds remaining. But before that the St. John’s backcourt trio of Shamorie Ponds, Marcus LoVett and Arizona transfer Justin Simon combined for 54 points, 19 rebounds and 8 assists.

    “I played against all great guards, but these guys are shifty, they can create their own shot, they’re just different players,” said Rutgers guard Corey Sanders, who went for 16 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists. “They hunt for theirs and they’re going to go at you. They’re not going to back down.”

    R.J. Barrett is set to announce his college choice at 6 p.m. on Nov. 10 at Lionhead Golf & Conference Centre in Brampton, Ontario. The announcement will be carried live during the 6 p.m. ET edition of Canada’s SportsCentre on TSN.

    With the announcement fast approaching, college coaches are making their final pitches to him.

    Duke associate head coach Jeff Capel made an early morning visit on Wednesday to see the 6-foot-7 wing from Montverde (FL) Academy, as ZAGSBLOG reported that day.

    “Capel was there at 4:45 in the morning, we practiced at 4:45,” Montverde coach Kevin Boyle told ZAGSBLOG. “Duke was in the gym. Coach K came two weeks before and met with him. They’ve been several times. Duke’s worked very, very hard.”

    By ADAM ZAGORIA

    GREENBURGH, N.Y. — When the NBA compiled its annual list of universities with the most players on opening-night rosters, it did not count Enes Kanter as a Kentucky product.

    The NBA listed Kentucky as having 25 products on opening-night rosters, while Kentucky counts 27. The school includes both Kanter and Alex Poythress as Kentucky guys.

    Poythress was a two-way player with Indiana and that’s why the NBA didn’t count him.

    As for Kanter, he attended Kentucky for one year before becoming the No. 3 pick of the Utah Jazz in the 2011 draft but never played there because of amateurism issues. The NCAA declared Kanter permanently ineligible as a collegiate athlete because he received approximately $33,000 from the Turkish club Fenerbahçe in excess benefits. The NCAA ruled that this amount was above and beyond what was considered acceptable.

    Jeff Van Gundy isn’t feeling Kyrie Irving’s latest comments.

    During ESPN’s broadcast Friday night of the Cavaliers-Wizards game, Van Gundy took issue with Irving’s comments that appeared to take a shot at Cavs coach Ty Lue.

    “Somebody texted me something about him saying he went to Boston because he wanted to play for an intellectual coach,” Van Gundy told Mike Breen on air. “I want to get that quote because if he did say that, that’s disappointing because Ty Lue, I coached him and he’s a very smart man.”

    Breen added, “When you coach a team that is led by LeBron James, that the expectations is title or disappointment each year, that’s a tough job.”

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