I do not have any confirmed specifics for the reasoning, but Jeff James will not be coming to the Mount to join the men's basketball team this year. I suspected as much with the arrival of Evan Cleveland, (which was reported her first on Aug. 22) but could not say so for sure.
With the men's basketball roster updated at MountAthletics.com, sans James, it is official. This means that none of the recruits signed by Milan Brown remained with the program after Brown left for Holy Cross. Donte Morales is headed to UNC-Wilmington, Justin Burrell is headed to prep school, then Holy Cross, and James is headed God knows where.
This is actually kind of cool because now Burke will have to wait one less year to say that he has all of his own players. Excluding redshirt freshman David Golladay, everyone in the class of 2014 on will have been recruited by Burke for as long as he remains with the team.
Cleveland joins Julian Norfleet and Josh Castellanos as the other two members of Burke's inaugural recruiting class.
4 comments:
Jeff James was destined to be the 'redshirt of the year', Milan thinking he was not sure James would be ready for prime time. Morales lacked several skills, notably socially and may not turn out to be useful on the court, though we all wish all kids well. Burrell needs another year academically, so it all works out well for him if he studies, doesn't get hurt and keeps his quickness, then HC might be getting a mediocre guard.
It is not fair of you to conclude this is a legitimate recruiting class for Coach Burke. Yes, the three coming are all his picks and all credit goes to him and his staff if any of them turns out to be a contributor, but when you say he has 'his own picks' you are, whether you know it or not, equating his recruitment this year with all the other coaches who have had the full time to recruit.
Indeed, it would be a remarkable achievement to have a good recruiting class given the few weeks of time the current staff had to fill the spots of the entire bunch who decided not to come to the Mount.
Good luck to our new and promising coaching staff and GO MOUNT.
I guess I should have been more clear. I did not mean to indicate that Burke was on equal ground for this year's recruiting class - I agree that these are probably not the three players he would have signed with a full year of recruiting (though maybe he would have taken one or two of them). What I really meant was that there will be one less year where the attachment to coach Brown remains, in my opinion. If all three original recruits had stayed, or even one of them, there may have been a "these aren't all his players" stigma when this incoming class becomes seniors.
You are right about James, redshirt all the way if he came here under Brown, probably the same with Burke.
I don't know Donte Morales so it would be unfair of me to speak about him socially, but I think that's a little harsh what you say unless you know him very well.
Burrell's grades are fine. He would 100 percent be accepted to Holy Cross this year - a Patriot League school where they don't allow non-medical redshirts. At one point in the summer, and it may still hold true, HC's incoming recruiting class had the highest GPA in the country. Obviously grades vary from school to school, but to be on top is remarkable (they were Sean Kearney's recruits, but it speaks to the grades players have coming into school.) The ONLY reason Burrell is redshirting at Holy Cross is because they do not have a scholarship available. It may work out so that he has one less year in the shadow of this year's point guard, but his grades are fine - he's a smart kid, who I have spoken with multiple times during his visits to campus.
Also, I would not call Burrell mediocre by any means. Other than Goode he would have been the best point guard we've gotten since I've been at the school. He's lefty who can shoot, drive and pass, and like I said, he's pretty smart.
You can't tell me a Washington Post Second Team All-Metro selection is a mediocre player before we see him in the college game. All signs point to success for him.
How long Coach Burke has had to recruit these guys is irrelevant.
He gave all 3 of them full scholarships to the Mount and therefore will be judged accordingly on how they do.
Once you grant the scholarship, it becomes your pick. He could have just as easily rolled the scholarships over to next year when he had the full year.
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