Derrick Brown Update

Derrick Brown participated in commencement activities yesterday and received his degree along with CJ Anderson and BJ Raymond. Brown has been invited to the NBA camp in Chicago for May 27 -29th. Reading the other 57 names at that camp I feel like Derrick will have a terrific opportunity to play himself into solid first round consideration. It will be interesting to see which teams invite him for individual workouts leading up to the June 15th early entry withdrawal date. My feeling at this time is he will be drafted in the first round. Nothing scientific here I just agree with many that this year is a weak draft class and his chances are good. To be clear I would be more than happy if he came back for Chris Mack's first season as head coach but life will go on if he does stay in. I would like to see him go first round if he does.

IF HE DOES stay in the NBA draft Xavier will be down to 10 scholarship players. If we were to lose another transfer we would be down to danger time in case of injuries or academic issues. To that end you may see Xavier offer Jamal Olaswere out of Springbrook High School in Maryland. He has been receiving late interest from Georgetown but he has been 'off the radar' of most scouting services. He is a 6'6" post player who has a dominant left hand. I have never seen Jamal play but my take is if he is offered on his visit later this week Mack and staff see the need for insurance. There is some thought on banking the scholarship for next season to give us four for the 2010 class. My dream recruiting class for next year would be Jordan Latham, JD Weatherspoon, Donnie Hale, and Jay Canty. However there are new names popping up every weekend since AAU season is in full swing. My expectation is that we would have two sewn up heading into the July evaluation period but recruiting is a very inexact science to say the least.