As the 2010-11 High School basketball season approaches, a few of the top High School Basketball prospects are still deciding where they will play their college ball. One of those is Winter Park, Florida’s [URL=”http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Austin-Rivers-81988″]Austin Rivers[/URL].
Rivers is rated as the No. 1 overall player on ESPN’s 2011 Big Board, No. 1 on Rivals Top 150 and No. 3 on Scout.com. As of this writing, his current list of possibles is Duke, UNC and Kansas. Odds on favorite, and a heavy favorite at that, is the Duke Blue Devils… (This is the area we as UK faithful throw in a friendly booooo)
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Other top notch recruits have already given their verbal commitment. Let me introduce the UK commit, [URL=”http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Mike-Gilchrist-70945″]Mr Michael Gilchrist[/URL] (this is where we stand and cheer…). Gilchrist was considered, for the majority of the last twelve months, to be the top player in the Class of 2011. Only recently has that crown been overthrown.
Drop he did, but not far as Michael comes in at No. 2 over at ESPN, No. 3 at Rivals and No. 5 at Scout.com.
Michael plays for St Patrick High School/Academy out of Elizabeth N.J., while Rivers hits the court for Winter Park High School out of Winter Park, Florida. The two teams have met one time before when St Patrick and Gilchrist got the better of Rivers and Winter Park, 59-54.
Thanks to ESPN, the two will have the chance to meet again, this time on National TV on ESPN2. The date, and you want to mark this in your calendar, is January 14.
The intrigue of the match up is a possible rematch, but in different colored uniforms, some where in the 2012 NCAA tournament. With Kentucky almost surely securing the Number 1 recruiting class for 2011 and the Dukies grabbing a top talent like Rivers, it’s a given these two teams will be announced when the Big dance comes around.
So UK fans, mark the calendar and get ready to root for your UK recruit against what is almost for sure, a Dukie in Rivers….
Go Cats!!!
