Friday, December 14, 2007

The recruits that got away


This is one who won't get away, potential Michigan Mr. Basketball Eric Evans (pictured above) is locked up to come to Duquesne

The ones that got away:

Marvell Waithe - 6'8 - 190 pounds - Did not qualify for Loyola Chicago


Luis Colon - Kansas St - 6'10 - 270 pounds - 1 pt and 1 board in 8 minutes per game this year as a freshman.

Danny Nee claimed to have Colon locked up to come to Duquesne, but then Nee was fired for being an awful coach. Ron Everhart went head to head with his friend Bobby Huggins in a recruiting battle for this monster. Huggins won, and then took the WVU job leaving Colon and some other highly regarded recruits high and dry at K-State.

This seems to be where Colon does most of his work this season: the bench

Lawrence Blackledge - Marquette - 6'8 - 185 pounds- 3.8 minutes per game -- (below in yellow)

Blackledge had two years of eligibility remaining when he transferred from Southwestern Illinois College to Marquette. Needless to say he has not become a contributor.



Jonathan Rodriguez -- Campbell - 6'5- 200 pounds - 21.1 pts 12.4 rebounds. Suffice to say this is one that really got away.

Campbell is a Division I school playing out of the Atlantic Sun Conference


Tyler Kepkay - Utah- 6'0 - 185 pounds - 10.1 pts a game .448 from behind the arc

Kepkay was a JC transfer from Eastern Utah, go figure he ended up signing with Utah and not Duquesne. Tyler has started every game this season for the Utah, and has an 18/9 assist to turnover ratio. Anyone else think we could have used one of Kepkay's threeballs in the Pitt game?


Steffphon Pettigrew - Western Kentucky - 6'5 - 220 pounds - 4.3 pts and 3.6 rebounds a game, he also has a 1/2.7 assist to turnover ratio and has yet to hit a three pointer. Clearly he isn't lighting it up in his freshman season with the Hilltoppers.

Pettigrew finished high school by being named Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball. I like his tie in the picture below, classy.


Sean Carter - Oregon State - 6'9 - 225 pounds - 5.3 pts a game and 3.6 boards in 18 minutes a game as a freshman.

Carter has the type of build the Dukes could really use in THIS year's recruiting class.

That is quite a grin Carter is sporting


Jeremy Price - Georgia - 6'8 - 270 pounds - 7.9 pts and 4.4 boards in around 20 minutes

Was rated as a 4 star recruit yet only got offers from Georgia and Alabama, hmm anyone else think he wouldn't qualify academically at Duquesne?

Nope, no relation to former Dukes standout Kevin Price.

Imagine this monster lining up next to Luis Colon

Steve Swiech - Akron - 6'9 - 250 pounds - He appears to be redshirting, Akron's website says he is "still recovering from a stress fracture in his left foot that he suffered during his junior year of high school."

Swiech is one of the very few Division I calibre prospects to come out of Pittsburgh, he played at Elizabeth Forward where he averaged 24.6 points, 12.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocks during his senior campaign.

The Pittsburghers get two pictures each.



Steve McNees - Akron - 6'0 - 170 pounds - McNees had committed to Duquesne but decided on Akron after Danny Nee was fired. Steve redshirted last year but is seeing a lot of minutes this season for the Zips. McNees is averaging 22.3 minutes a game with 6.6 ppg.

Like Swiech, McNees is a Pittsburgher. McNees went to Shenango in New Castle.

Mad props for the headband

--

Steve19981 from the Duquesne Dukes Forum contributed to this article.

2 comments:

Steve said...

Thanks for the expansion on my post. Looks really good with the pictures.

I really think that the ones that got away speaks volumes about what RE is doing with this program, because of where they got away to. If you include Javier Rodriguez in the mix, we had strong interest from 4 near misses who ended up as first year contributers in big time conferences. For us to be in the running for such high caliber players after coming off a ten win season is absolutely amazing.

It is fun to reflect on what might have been, but what I'm most excited about is that RE brought some of the best of his targets to the bluff this season.

The Duke from Dukes Court said...

No problem. With this long layoff for the Dukes I have been doing anything I can to find posting ideas.

Hopefully we can find a couple big post players to bring in for next season.