re: Basketball Recruiting Discussion

Well we already knew Henry was transferring out of the program. Coach Martin has made it official today with the announcement that Henry, Sheppard, and Theus will no longer be part of the men's basketball program at USC.


Official Program Announcement

This leaves the program with either 8 or 9 scholarship players, depending on if former walk-on and rising senior Brian Steele has a scholarship or not. I believe Steele was given a scholarship last season, but haven't seen much reported on it so don't know for sure. Anyways, like with football a scholarship given to initial walk-ons are typically one-year deals and often can be revoked to make way for a 4-year player to be added, if necessary.

USC has 3 incoming players signed for next year in Dozier, Silva, and Gregory, and a 4th in C Travon Bunch that's expected to sign once he gets in a qualifying SAT/ACT score. That would be a total of 4 newcomers, which would make the total roster 12 or 13 scholarship players, depending on Steele's status. I think we can all take the position that if Steele had a scholarship last season, he won't have one next season. 13 scholarship players are the maximum for men's CBB...

So the word is that Blanton's recovery from his hip injury and surgery is moving along positively. Sounds like we'll have one final scholarship offer left to hand out, and the staff has been & is aggressively recruiting other prospects ranging anywhere from another true center and/or power forward type (Clifford, Cook, Cobb, Carter, Holman), to another shooting guard type (Ellison, Dixson, Mack). Wonder who it will be??

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Class of 2015 guard Tookie Brown (Madison, Ga./Morgan County) visited one for day a week ago but the trip wasn’t an official visit. Brown has four official visits left to take, but doesn’t have anything set up at this time for any school. Brown did not receive an offer on the visit but he’s supposed to talk to the Gamecocks’ staff later this week to see where things stand.

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SportsTalk was first to report that power forward target Eric Cobb will take one more visit before making his college decision and that trip will most likely be to Massachusetts. There have been some positive vibes coming from Cobb’s camp for South Carolina but the Gamecocks aren’t the definite choice right now.

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A good bit of news and activity for the 2015 class happening today:

C prospect Eric Cobb was expected to announce today at 4pm, and USC was a strong leader for his services. At the last minute, his announcement was however pushed back to tomorrow, with heavy school-work today being the reason.

Now his HS coach is reportedly stating that Cobb's announcement is back on today, within the hour. So stay tuned...

Then another C prospect for the 2015 class that was already committed to us - Travon Bunch - has news tweeted that his was initially going to sign this Wednesday, which was news to me. Apparently his SAT scores which he was waiting on was going to be received by then. The reported from the USC coaching staff is there's high confidence his scores will be fine. BUT NOW there's a delay in that Wednesday date as the SAT scores has apparently been delayed, so it will be a day-by-day wait on that. But regardless it seems that final news on Bunch is at last very close.

Further, Coach Martin and his staff hosted an unofficial visit from Charlotte 49er SG Kayshawn Woods. Apparently Woods (6-3, 185) out of Gastonia is looking to transfer from Charlotte. He is a rising sophomore although would sit out next season if he came to USC. He averaged 8.4 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 32 games (three starts) for the 49ers last season.

Currently USC has 2 scholarship spots for these 3 players, so we'll see what happens....

https://www.usab.com/news-events/news/2015/06/15-mu19-tc-roster-announced.aspx

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Ten USA Basketball gold medalists are among 24 players who have accepted invitations to take part in the 2015 USA Basketball Men’s U19 World Championship Team training camp that will take place June 12-26 at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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and Seventh Woods (Hammond School/Columbia, S.C.).

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This is a solid pick-up for USC, but also a bit surprising. I'm guessing that Bunch is not making it in to USC. But more solid size in the paint for the program is of course the most glaring need IMO - even more than perimeter scoring....

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I'm guessing that Bunch is not making it in to USC.

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Yeah I thought this was very telling on what the coaches thought of his status for academically qualifying.

So this means Cobb qualified?!?!? No takebacks, right?!?! I read months ago that he wasn't a lock to qualify anywhere, (he and Bunch) so if that means Cobb is in, that's AWESOME news. We needed a big man and at 6'10 275 lbs, he fits that mold. He'll have 1 year to develop while Chat finishes his Sr year. What this gives us though is a big man to come in for some quality minutes this year though. We needed that with Henry gone.

Updated OP, as it stands the class is currently ranked 33rd in the country, 8th best in the SEC by 247.

'16 4* SF Deriante Jenkins came to SC for a visit over the weekend. He hasn't been offered yet, but he really liked what he saw. Insiders believe if we offer we can jump out front.

'17 4* PG/SG Davontae Shuler was on campus this weekend, that's not far for him though, since he's from Irmo. B/w Coach Whipple, BJ McKie and J McKie, we've got this locked up, he's coming to SC.

Also, just like SC was able to stategically guide Seventh Woods off the unc train, it's over with '15 5* commit Jalek Felton
If unc gets hit with penalties (even for just a year or two) to bball, then Felton will not go there, IMO. Also, SC has help in Mullins, SC. Felton has family ties to unc though, his uncle played there. However, if they lose the postseason in '17, I could see Felton looking elsewhere, but we'll be fighting off kansas and kentucky for him.