Ithaca Journal
June 8, 2009
With nine rising seniors set to depart Cornell's men's basketball program next May, several of whom have formed the foundation of back-to-back Ivy League championship teams, Steve Donahue and his coaching staff have never had a more important recruiting class than the one due to arrive on campus this August.
Only time will allow an accurate grade of the incoming class of six - eight including expected impact transfers Mark Coury and Max Groebe - that will bump the Big Red's roster number to 20 players this fall.
"Our coaching staff needed to address the fact that we will be losing one of the largest and most talented classes in the history of the Ivy League, and we feel among this group will be the centerpieces who will keep the Cornell program competing for conference titles," Donahue said in a release. "This group is individually gifted, but also have shown to be outstanding teammates who make those around them better."
Donahue's class of five freshmen and one junior transfer, officially released today by the athletics communication office, includes a defensive standout at guard and five versatile forwards from six different states.
The class is 6-foot-2 guard Miles Asafo-Adjei from The Ensworth School in Antioch, Tenn.; Eitan Chemerinski, a 6-8 combo forward with range from the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in the Washington, D.C. area; Josh Figini, a 6-9 forward with range from Chisago Lakes High School in Chisago Lakes, Minn.; Peter McMillan, a 6-7 sharpshooting small forward from California who spent 2008-09 completing a postgraduate year at Northfield Mt. Hermon School in Massachusetts; Errick Peck, a rugged 6-6 power forward from the basketball hotbed of Indianapolis; and skinny 6-8 perimeter forward Anthony Gatlin, who spent the past two years playing in the Summit League with the Centenary College Gents in Shreveport, La.
He was already familiar with the Cornell coaching staff from his days at Pearland High School in Pearland, Texas.
"The coaches had talked to me before in high school and I knew they had good academics and stuff, and they kind of contacted me again and took advantage," Gatlin said. "I saw the campus, knew the academics, liked the academics and ... they have a real good basketball program."
Asafo-Adjei won a state title in basketball with The Ensworth School as a senior. A three-sport standout in football and track and field, he developed a reputation as a defensive stopper.
Chemerinski, Figini and Peck were McDonald's High School All-America nominees. Currently, Peck is readying for the Indiana-Kentucky All-Star series as one of 13 players on the Indiana team. The all-star teams will play on June 13 in Indianapolis and June 14 in Louisville.
Coury and Groebe, transfers from Kentucky and Massachusetts, respectively, sat out last season. Coury, a 6-9 forward, has two years of eligibility remaining, while Groebe, a 6-3 guard, has three.
Cornell finished the 2008-09 season with a 21-10 record and a first-place 11-3 mark in the Ivy League. The Big Red lost to third-seeded Missouri in the first round of the NCAA tournament, 78-59, in Boise, Idaho.
Cornell men's basketball
Class of 2013
* Miles Asafo-Adjei, 6-2, 170 pounds, G (The Ensworth School/Antioch, Tenn.)
* Eitan Chemerinski, 6-8, 195, F (Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School/Potomac, Md.)
* Josh Figini, 6-9, 200, F (Chisago Lakes High School/Chisago Lakes, Minn.)
* Peter McMillan, 6-7, 220, F (Northfield Mt. Hermon School/Brentwood, Calif.)
* Errick Peck, 6-6, 210, F (Cathedral High School/Indianapolis, Ind.)
Class of 2012
* Anthony Gatlin, 6-8, 180, F (Pearland High School/Centenary College/Pearland, Texas)
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