Reactions to Edwards

Well, it’s nice to see that even with PSU’s best basketball season ever, the recruiting coverage is still non-existant. Out of left field came Bill Edwards’ commitment to play for Penn State yesterday. He decided to uphold the PSU tradition of being the completely unknown, spring signing this program has couped the last 5 years. However, those guys we landed have generally been unknown JuCos (David Jackson I, Travis Parker, Sky King, Pringle). Bill was a 2009 target for a while and now he’ll be on campus in two months with 4 years of eligibility.

Wait, what? 2009? I thought you said we were finished with 2009 recruiting? Yeah, that’s what everybody thought. But we’re the Tweener Factory. So when a 6’6″ guy with no true position wants to play basketball here, Ed DeChellis brings him. I know we’ve been looking at Bill for a long time, but I thought it wasn’t meant to be when Sasa Borovnjak committed. However, DeChellis thought it was more important to keep to our roots and bring in undersized forwards (or perhaps in Bill’s case, an oversized PG). While trying to follow Bill’s career at Middletown HS in Ohio, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was the kind of kid DeChellis has had success with. Zakee Wadood. Travis Parker. Geary Claxton. Jamelle Cornley. Edwards’ profile is very much like those guys, which makes me very excited.

2009 Recruiting Class

I haven’t been able to stay on top of the season recently because of how busy I’ve been, let alone recruiting. However, I’ve got some time now, and PSU has finished their 2009 recruiting with a commitment from Sasa Borovnjak last week. PSU had 5 open scholarships for the 2009-2010 season coming into this year. However, there are no juniors on the roster this season, so those 5 ‘ships have to last for the next 2 recruiting seasons. PSU signed 6’5″ G/F Jermaine Marshall and 6’1″ G Tim Frazier in the fall signing period. DeChellis said during the season that they were looking to sign one more guy for the spring period.  Well, that guy’s now Borovnjak, so PSU is done with their 2009 recruiting and set up with 2 scholarships for 2010. Here’s a run down of PSU’s three commitments for 2009.

Signing Day

Today was the first day recruits of the 2009 Class could sign their LOIs to their respective schools.  If you did not know, PSU had 2 verbal commitments for this class coming into today.  6’5″ wing, Jermaine Marshall, committed in the spring.  He did not sign his LOI today, but no worries.  I’m sure he’s just having a press conference on Friday to celebrate his signing.  He attends Red Land High School, in Harrisburg, so I’m sure the Patriot-News will be all over his signing when he does.

The other commitment, 6’2″ point guard Tim Frazier, did sign his LOI today.  Now that Coach DeChellis had a chance to talk about him, either he’s blowing smoke or this kid is a serious player.

“We are very excited to have Tim join our program,” DeChellis said. “He is a very fast, quick player with tremendous speed in the back court and a good shooter. He possesses the kind of athleticism that Stanley Pringle does. He can get in the lane and find open guys and is a great drive and kick passer and he can score. He is a very good on-the-ball defender and a tremendous athlete and we think he really solidifies our back court for the future.”

Jermaine Marshall is going to commit

http://blog.pennlive.com/patriotnewssports/2008/04/marshall_leans_toward_penn_sta.html

No surprise here, really. Marshall is apart of the 2009 class. Ed and staff have been all over this kid since the 9th grade. St. Joe’s and Temple were also in the mix. I’ve only seen him play once and came away very unimpressed. But who the hell am I to evaluate talent? There will be more about his commitment tomorrow.

More on Mr. Marshall later.