Thursday, May 29, 2008

Pre draft camp

Here is a list of players from the Orlando Pre-draft camp. You will notice there are no NMSU names, which isn't too surprising, but Justin Hawkins had a chance I thought to be invited after playing pretty well in Portsmouth after the season. I'm watching a game right now with JR Giddens, who the ESPN guys said was having a good camp. Marcelus Kemp is also on the list.


http://www.draftexpress.com/article/2008-NBA-Pre-Draft-Camp-Rosters-and-Physical-Only-Invites-2897/



I talked with Fred Peete last week. Fred said he had hired an agent and was planning on attending some camps down the road, hopefully earning a tryout with a team. I'm no NBA scout, but it seemed to me that Hawkins, Peete, for his size and ability to score and defend, and Martin Iti, have the potential to play basketball for a living somewhere. What do you think?

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Women's hoops news

Spoke with Darin Spence for a recruiting roundup story that will be in Thursday's paper. But he did inform me of some interesting schedule changes. It seems as the women's program continues to improve, they are improving their non-conference schedule. In addition to the UNM and UTEP games, the Aggies have a home-and-home set with Kansas, starting with Jan. 4 at Lawrence. The Aggies also have home dates with Cal Poly and UC Irvine. Other road game are at Long Beach, Northern Colorado and they play in a San Diego Tournament where Wake Forest is slated to show up. Thanksgiving Classic opponents are Loyola-Chicago and Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

I hope to have some men's schedule info in the next couple of weeks.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Two commits

The Aggies received verbal committments from 7-foot-1, 235-pound center Mouhamadou Abdoulaye Ndoye from Senegal and 6-foot-3 point guard Johnny Higgins, who played the last two years at Notre Dame Prep.According to Higgins' father, after Johnny Higgins visited the NMSU campus last weekend, he cut off the rest of his recruiting and will move to Las Cruces for summer school this summer.

Both players will receive scholarships and be on the Aggies roster next season.

Higgins is a player who will come in right away and compete for minutes. He's a prep school player, which means he's already competed at a high level. He originally signed with Duquesne to join a prep school coach, but after committing in early November, he was released from his letter of intent in early April. Ndoye is obviously a project type player that adds size.

With the two additions, the Aggies recruiting class looks like this. Let me know if I miss something

Centers
Mouhamadou Abdoulaye Ndoye
Hamidu Rahman
Chris Gabriel

Forwards
Troy Gillenwater

Guards
Terrance Joyner
Johnny Higgins
Faisal Aden
Robert Lumpkins

The regular signing period ends on May 21. Look for more on this story in the Sun News in Saturday's paper

Friday, May 9, 2008

Basketball items

I wish I had some recruiting news, which I know is what everyone wants to talk about, but I had a couple of smaller items.

Jorge Gutierrez ended up signing with Cal. He took a visit the weekend after he was at NMSU and apparently liked what he saw. The Aggies have another guard, Johnny HIggins from Notre Dame Prep on campus this weekend. He played with Michael Beasely two years ago. I hope to have more on his visit next week.

To the coaching front, assistant coaches Matt Grady and John McMullen each received one-year contract renewals since they were hired as one-year coaches. Chris Pompey still has a year on his contract.

Grady's and McMullen's contract is good from May 1 through April 30 of 2009. Also renewed was head women's coach Darin Spence, whose contract is good from May 1 through April 30 of 2011. His two assistants, Joel Washington and Brooke Atkinson, were also renewed for a year.

Friday, May 2, 2008

It happens elsewhere

Don't know if you've seen this story about Indiana Freshman Eli Holman asking out.

A couple of thoughts crossed my mind, first being that players want out across the country for one reason or another. Here is a guy that wants to leave Indiana and an established coach like Tom Crean.

Second, as you may know Holman played with Wendell McKines at Richmond High School in Oakland.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/news?slug=ap-indiana-holmantransfers&prov=ap&type=lgns