Below, some recruiting news from around the Ivy League.Jim Thomas of the Ontario Hoops Report writes this week with respect to Cornell recruit, Manny Sahota:
Props to Brampton's D'Youville's H. S. forward Manny Sahota for being awarded a scholarship to Ivy League power Cornell this past summer. Manny is an excellent student in the classroom and has worked extremely hard to make himself an excellent basketball player. He has worked countless hours in the gym with his high school coaches. The best part in my estimation has been his decision to stay in Canada for his education and give Ontario basketball fans a chance to see him play as a senior. This is rare considering the exodus of talent from the Peel high school ranks over the past two year's. It proves my point that young players don't have to go the prep school route to access scholarship offers from colleges in the United States.
We already reported the commitment here on The Cornell Basketball Blog, but the RBclarion.com publishes the news of Riverside-Brookfield High School's Sean McGonagill's commitment to Brown University. One division I coach tells us he could be the best guard commitment in the Ivy League thus far. He also considered Columbia, Cornell, Loyola-Chicago and North Dakota. McGonagill told RBclarion, “They [Brown] showed the most interest in me, and I was interested in them as well. When I went to visit there recently, I needed questions answered: How hard is the workload there with basketball? How does travel impact my workload? Obviously, they gave me good answers.” The article notes that "Brown has not had much success with basketball."
We also posted the news via The Cornell Basketball Blog's Twitter account, but Dwight Powell, a 6'9" power forward from IMG Academy in Brandenton, Florida committed to Stanford over Harvard. He was reportedly the Crimson's top target for the class of 2010. Powell told the CardinalReport that he received his acceptance to Stanford. See some coverage of the story on Examiner.com.
This news above brings us to the following point. After all of the hype and buzz all spring and summer surrounding Harvard's recruitment activities, the Crimson's efforts have thus far failed. Despite Harvard's courtship of several elite prospects, none of them will attend Harvard next year. Top target Dwight Powell is off to Stanford, Rod Odom, another top frontcourt prospect chose Arizona. Meanwhile, top wing prospect Keala King chose Arizona State Finally, Pe'Shon Howard, a combo guard, committed to Harvard, only to back out of the commitment 48 hours later and reopen his recruitment to other colleges. Howard is not expected to choose Harvard again.
The reality is that despite Harvard's "national name recognition" which is not synonymous with "comparative academic quality," the school does not have much to offer its elite basketball prospects.
As one former student writer noted in The Harvard Crimson newspaper, "Harvard’s facilities rank in the bottom half of the league...not only by its size, but also with the relative lack of buzz or excitement felt inside it." But Harvard's problems and misdirection in basketball go far beyond subpar facilities.
Harvard basketball, and athletics generally at Harvard, receive little attention from the media, the local community or the student body. In fact, the students may never truly embrace Harvard basketball simply because the long established culture and tradition of Harvard has never placed emphasis on athletics or social life, but rather academics and studying. As The Crimson added, "the Harvard basketball program makes little attempt to sell itself to the students and cultivate a fan base."
With the hiring of Tommy Amaker, Harvard has made aggressive attempts to upgrade its basketball talent. But many of these efforts have come at great cost to the University. First, Harvard was the subject of embarrassing negative national media publicity, second, the school was exposed to potential NCAA violations and third, the obvious reduced academic standards for the basketball team have made the players far less representative of the general Harvard student body, thereby violating a core Ivy League principle. And despite all of Harvard's aggressive new measures, the team's best player of the last decade was not recruited by Amaker, but by his predecessor, Frank Sullivan.
We also posted the news via The Cornell Basketball Blog's Twitter account, but Dwight Powell, a 6'9" power forward from IMG Academy in Brandenton, Florida committed to Stanford over Harvard. He was reportedly the Crimson's top target for the class of 2010. Powell told the CardinalReport that he received his acceptance to Stanford. See some coverage of the story on Examiner.com.
This news above brings us to the following point. After all of the hype and buzz all spring and summer surrounding Harvard's recruitment activities, the Crimson's efforts have thus far failed. Despite Harvard's courtship of several elite prospects, none of them will attend Harvard next year. Top target Dwight Powell is off to Stanford, Rod Odom, another top frontcourt prospect chose Arizona. Meanwhile, top wing prospect Keala King chose Arizona State Finally, Pe'Shon Howard, a combo guard, committed to Harvard, only to back out of the commitment 48 hours later and reopen his recruitment to other colleges. Howard is not expected to choose Harvard again.
The reality is that despite Harvard's "national name recognition" which is not synonymous with "comparative academic quality," the school does not have much to offer its elite basketball prospects.
There are many critical components in a successful Division I college basketball program. Harvard is lacking in several of these areas.
As one former student writer noted in The Harvard Crimson newspaper, "Harvard’s facilities rank in the bottom half of the league...not only by its size, but also with the relative lack of buzz or excitement felt inside it." But Harvard's problems and misdirection in basketball go far beyond subpar facilities.
Harvard basketball, and athletics generally at Harvard, receive little attention from the media, the local community or the student body. In fact, the students may never truly embrace Harvard basketball simply because the long established culture and tradition of Harvard has never placed emphasis on athletics or social life, but rather academics and studying. As The Crimson added, "the Harvard basketball program makes little attempt to sell itself to the students and cultivate a fan base."
With the hiring of Tommy Amaker, Harvard has made aggressive attempts to upgrade its basketball talent. But many of these efforts have come at great cost to the University. First, Harvard was the subject of embarrassing negative national media publicity, second, the school was exposed to potential NCAA violations and third, the obvious reduced academic standards for the basketball team have made the players far less representative of the general Harvard student body, thereby violating a core Ivy League principle. And despite all of Harvard's aggressive new measures, the team's best player of the last decade was not recruited by Amaker, but by his predecessor, Frank Sullivan.
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