Miami takes a pass

As expected (and reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer today) Miami will not be playing UC next season. MU wanted a little more coin than they were going to cough up and Henderson said all the right things. Again the only ones losing are fans of traditional rivalries. UC will pick up a cupcake they hope they can beat and MU goes some where else for a bigger pay day.

Bearcat Recruiting update

I generally leave the recruiting scene stuff to Deck but I have been needing a UC B-ball fix so I set off to dig up some off-season news. Also Deck keeps getting on me about being a total slacker and not posting. So fix needed, motivation DigiDeck style supplied, off I went and the results are pouring in. 

I should start off by saying that the following tidbits are in no particular order of importance, just the order in which I scribbled my notes.

Last weekends visitor Bobby Maze signed with Tennessee after they told him he was "the solution". Hmmmmmm... I wonder what they told Scotty Hopson.

Danny McElroy has reopened his recruiting after seeing to much comp at forward. I think maybe He's been told he wouldn't be starting as a freshman.

Mfon Udofia   PG Georgia - Still has UC high on his list. The #36 overall player in 09 according to Scout.com has been lights out in AAU. Besides being one of the best Points in his class signing him could earn the Cats a long hard look from this guy.

 AAU teammate Ari Stewart#16 Overall in the country. How awesome would that be?

For 2010 The cats have offered Adreian Payne out Dayton. And for 2011 Cincinnati's own Aiken High School's Chane Behanan is already on Micks radar. 

2009 Recruiting Update

I wanted to speak briefly about our recruiting targets for the 2009 class. X has two scholarships predicted to be available for this class (Raymond & Anderson) and apparently Miller and staff are swinging for the fences in the early going. They did this with the '07 class and had plenty of misses which lead to needing to snag transfers McLean and Taylor to go along with Jackson. We have had two misses already here in the early going. Wing guard Naji Hibbert was down to Texas A&M and us according to rivals and he went with the Aggies. I think all the underclassmen we have at the guard spot will make it very difficult for the staff to land another gem there. And we went after Lawrenceville, GA big man Jeremy Olsen who at 6-10 would have been a nice bookend for Kenny Frease but he ultimately chose Utah and given the fact he is Mormon that isn't all of a suprise. Below I have listed my 'dream three' knowing we can only get two:

-Ari Stewart 6-7 190 Marietta, GA: 5 star recruit by Rivals and rated 4th best small forward in this class. He lists his top four as Florida, Georgia Tech (no confirmed offer at this time), Wake Forest, and X. He has been offered a scholarship according to Scout.com from Arizona, UCONN, Georgia, Michigan State, North Carolina, Oregon, and Texas. He would be an absolute huge get for us.

-Kammeon Holsey 6-8 200 Sparta, GA: We are in his top 4 with other offers from Clemson, GA Tech, and Alabama.

-James Still 6-9 230 Detroit, MI: Most schools want James to play Center while X sees him as a '4' which is attractive to him. Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan, and Michigan State are all showing interest at this time.

Other names to watch for in the coming weeks: Omari Lawrence, Tevin Baskin, Brian Oliver, Ben Simons, Andrew Fitzgerald, Kevin Parrom, Jordan Prosser, and longshot Mfon Udofia.

Deveroes Summer League

Begins Sunday June 15th at Noon. Woodward HS is the location once again. Traditionally this is our chance to see the newcomers up close. I'll try and catch as many as I can and leave my thoughts about the guys keeping in mind that this is in fact summer ball. However the games can be very entertaining and if you get the chance you should stop by and catch some of it.

UC/Miami

Read the Cincinnati Enquirer story this morning regarding US Bank cancelling this game. My take is this series won't last past next season and it won't happen next year unless Charlie Coles tells the Miami AD to go ahead and schedule it. What kills me most of all is that US Bank is holding out hope of lining up another game featuring UC. What makes the management down there think that game will draw any better? Mick is quoted that with a 'tough' 18 league games the 'Cats can only schedule little sisters of the poor which wouldn't entice me to go to US Bank. I completely understand not doing home and homes with MAC schools but this is a little different. This is a 'rivalry' that local fans should have interest in. I think this is another by product of UC having a couple down seasons. Cincinnati fans in general are very 'fair weather' to say the least.