Recruiting Notebook

Tuesday Recruiting Notes

Published

8 years ago

July 26, 2016

In case you missed it when I tweeted it last night, I’m really excited to say that starting next month (exact date to be determined) I’ll be co-hosting a Pitt Football podcast with Pittsburgh radio personality and owner of Pittsburghpostgame.com (@pghpostgame) Dan Kingerski (@Budmoonshine). This will be a weekly broadcast and run through the college football season.

As far as content during the podcast, we’ll have relevant Pitt football guests, including out-of-town and Pittsburgh media to preview Pitt’s opponents, Pitt assistant coaches, potential Pitt recruits, current Pitt commitments, WPIAL HS football coaches or players, and more. We might even answer your Twitter questions. Over the next week or so, we’ll be working on our exact format and give you an exact date for the first podcast.

**Aside from the podcast, we’ll have another big addition to Pittsburgh Sports Now which I’m hoping to be able to announce today. It’s something that Pitt fans will like and it will completely solidify us as the #1 source for Pitt coverage anywhere. Trust me.

UPDATE (5:26 AM)-
** Pitt basketball target and 4-star forward Naji Marshall announced that he’s down to a Final 7 and it includes Pitt. Marshall (Greenbelt, Maryland) says that he’ll pick from Pitt, Maryland, Rhode Island, South Carolina, TCU, Virginia Tech and Xavier. Marshall could make his decision as early as this week.

** Following the evaluation period, the Duquesne coaching staff has offered a few more players. The first one is Isaac Kante, a 6’8″ forward from Brooklyn, New York. Aside from Duquesne, Kante also has offers from Canisus, Iona, St. Louis, St. Bonaventure and UNC Greensboro.

** Getting back to Pitt basketball recruiting, a major target will reduce his offer list down to 7. Four-star 2017 center Victor Uyaelunmo will whittle his long list of offers down to 7 schools. Uyaelunmo holds offers from UConn, Illinois, TCU, Vanderbilt, SMU, Miami (FL), Georgia Tech, West Virginia, Florida and Georgetown.

Victor Uyaelunmo visiting Pitt in June – Photo courtesy of Victor Uyaelunmo

** A player that Duquesne just offered received a nice write-up from Prep Hoops . com. Here’s what they wrote last night about New Hampshire guard Geo Baker,

“Scouts came to watch him in every one of his games and for good reason. At 6’3″, Baker can flat out shoot. The two-guard makes it look easy as he glides to the basket for floaters. His lengthy arms help him get around defenders and dish out passes. He’s an unselfish player who will fit in at a Division-1 school and earn minutes from the start.”

Photo courtesy of Geo Baker

** Getting over to football, Philadelphia 3-star cornerback Kenny Bennett will make a trip to Maryland this coming Saturday. In the end, I could see Bennett deciding between Pitt, Virginia Tech and Maryland.

UPDATE (6:30 AM)-
** Over the weekend, 2017 forward Jordan Wright (Dillard HS in Florida) received an offer from Duquesne.

“Coach G (Rich Glesmann) told me after my game on Saturday that they were offering,” said Wright. “Some of my strengths are my aggressiveness, finding a way to get to the basket and getting my teammates open shots.”

Wright holds offers from Florida International, Virginia Tech, Chattanooga, Rider and tells me that he’s starting to hear from Central Florida, South Florida, Jacksonville and Arkansas.

As far as the Dukes, Wright says he’ll defiantly coinsider them.

“Yes, because Duquesne is in a great city, plays in the Atlantic 10 conference and have a good coaching staff,” said Wright.

Photo courtesy of Jordan Wright

UPDATE (8:25 AM)-
** I’ve been informed that one of the top prospects in the state for 2018 will be visiting Pitt this week. Harrisburg wide receiver Shaquon Anderson-Butts will visit the Pitt facility this coming Sunday. Prior to visiting Pitt, Anderson-Butts (6-0, 160) will spend a day in Morgantown visiting West Virginia. This athlete is a big-time talent that already has offers from Pitt, Penn State, Rutgers, West Virginia and Syracuse.

UPDATE (10:42 AM)-
** Jim Ferry has offered a scholarship to a very talented and highly rated player. Ethan Chargois (6-7, 225) is a 4-star recruit from Tulsa, Oklahoma. To this point, he holds offers from SMU, Colorado, Oklahoma State and Florida International.

According to a talent evaluator that I spoke with, Chargois is “a big, physical and really skilled player for his size. Has great hands and a really soft touch.”

A few minutes ago, I had a chance to talk with Chargois.

“I’d say I’m a stretch 4 who can also play with 3 position. Coach Lawson offered me and we talked about the pros of going to Duquesne,” said Chargois. “Things I know about Duquesne are that both the city of Pittsburgh and Duquesne’s campus are beautiful.”

Chargois told me that he hasn’t had much contact with Duquesne prior to this so this offer came as a surprise.

“I just got done with AAU so I’m gonna take a couple weeks off then talk about visits with my family and figure everything out.”

Photo courtesy of Ethan Chargois

UPDATE (2:10 PM)-
** Just reached 3-star cornerback Shakur Brown, who received a scholarship offer from Pitt over the weekend.

Brown (6-0, 180) is from Woodland High School in Stockbridge, Georgia. Aside from Pitt, Brown also has offers from Tennessee, Colorado State, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oregon State, Purdue, South Carolina, West Virginia and Marshall.

Interesting to find out that Pitt and other schools are recruiting Brown as a cornerback, despite him only playing 4 games in his high school career as a cornerback.

“Yes, I only played 4 games as a cornerback and I did it because I wanted to help my team,” said Brown.

Despite that big list of offers, Brown told me that at this point he doesn’t have any favorites and that “[he] would love to visit Pitt.”

Although he was surprised, Brown is “excited about the offer.”

Photo courtesy of Shakur Brown

UPDATE (6:52 PM)-
** Florida 4-star athlete Bruce Judson just announced that he’ll make his college decision tomorrow at 2 PM. Pitt is a place that Judson seems to like, but honestly, you can say that for a few schools on his list. He’s a very difficult kid to get an accurate read on.

Photo courtesy of Bruce Judson

UPDATE (10:07 PM)-
**Another elite prospect plans on narrowing down his list of teams. Beaver Falls 4-star defensive tackle Donovan Jeter announced tonight that he will cut his list down to 5 teams. Will Pitt make the list?

https://twitter.com/JeteNificent34/status/758116978611593216