Saturday, February 12, 2005

Recruiting - Hoops

If you turned it to ESPN2 last night, you might have caught a high school hoops game featuring Oak Hill Academy blowing out St.Patricks 87-51. Both teams feature players being recruited by GT, including PG Tywon Lawson and PF Kevin Durant of Oak Hill. Both these kids are impressive. Lawson is probably not 6'0" tall, but VERY fast and a pretty physical PG. He ran his team well, ending the night with about 20 points, 10 assists and about 8 steals. Great on the break and in transition and he played nice defense.......... Kevin Durant is a very good all-around player. Seems to have a decent outside stroke and is very athletic. He handles the ball ok, but at 6'9" what do you expect. One thing - he is skinny, not breaking 190lbs. No doubt he will have to put on some muscle to prevent getting banged around in the ACC........ Actually the kid I was most impressed with was Eric Devendorf, who is Syracuse bound. Man, he has an all-around game, inside, outside, great handle, quick, a nice stroke, you name it. He's a 6'4" SG............. On the St.Patrick's side, Derrick Caracter at 6'9" 300lb is being recruited by GT. Not a stellar outing. He showed flashes of having really good hands and a nice touch around the hoop, although he did seem to miss a handful of easy shots. I was not overly impressed with him in this particular game......