Morning rumble: catching up with Johnnies grads, Anderson + Gathers to adidas Nations

Some St. John's news and notes that we haven't covered in the past week or so, while writing about Ricardo Gathers' commitment...

Congratulations to Dwight Hardy, who has signed a contract with the Italian club Pistoia, who play their home games in an arena called the Palestra. (Hardy played in the US' Palestra during his junior season against Temple and Siena.) See Daly Dose's take and Johnny Jungle's take. Good luck to him, and more on Hardy's game to come this week on this site.

Paris Horne, Malik Boothe, and Justin Burrell played in the Malone Mulhall Benefit game, designed to honor a triop of University of Richmond students who died in a car crash (read more on the benefit). Other high-level players participated, including Danny Green, Jamine Peterson, Tyrone Nash, Jeff Xavier, and more.

Burrell and Paris Horne also played at Nike Pro City last night, so they could be near when Kevin Durant dropped even more jaws with his skill and athleticism. Burrell played on Durant's team, with Andre Barrett (former Seton Hall player) , Jessie Sapp (former Georgetown player), Sundiata Gaines (former Georgia player), and it looks like Roy Hibbert was on that team too. Is Burrell #44, boxing out near the end of this video of Durant highlights?

Steve Lavin's wallet has become a famed story among the blogs covering recruiting. From Zagsblog's report, the tale of the wallet has now moved on to ESPN. I still think Lavin left his wallet in El Segundo (video link).

Speaking of recruiting: both recruiting target Kyle Anderson and St. John's commit Ricardo Gathers are playing in the adidas Nations in Los Angeles, which pits the top high school players in the US against teams made of players originally from other continents - so there's an African team, an Asian team (that includes Pitt 2012 commit Steven Adams) and a Latin American team. And two US teams, one of 2012 players and one of 2013 players.

On the roster, Ricardo Gathers is playing for the Latin American team. Now I want to know more about his heritage... Caribbean, perhaps? Part Colombian? The championship and third games will be televised on CBS Sports.

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