The recruits that Steve Lavin is chasing for St. John's are certainly earning some prestige.
2012 recruiting targets Ricardo Gathers and Kyle Anderson are both on the 2011rosters for the NBA Players' Association's Top 100 camp, which starts this week. The yearly event is held at the University of Virginia, and is designed to school legitimate NBA hopefuls on basketball skills, recruiting issues, interviewing techniques, life after basketball, and other skills. And the camp even has a component to teach parents skills/ information about the recruiting process.
The camp isn't open to the public, but it's great to see Anderson and Gathers on the NBA radar. And great to see them on the same "team" in camp - the Heat. Hopefully they have more heart than the NBA team.
Kuran Iverson and Nerlens Noel, standout big men in the 2013 class, are also on the roster.
Meanwhile, Lincoln High School's Isaiah Whitehead participated in USA Basketball's under-16 camp, but didn't make the final roster to play in Cancun.
"It made me feel upset, but not that upset," said Whitehead, who has already picked up scholarship offers from North Carolina, St. John’s, USC, Pittsburgh and Syracuse. "I can still make the team in October."
Indeed, Showalter said, the entire 27 players will remain part of USA’s developmental program and Whitehead could make the U17 team a year from now. For instance, Kentucky recruit Michael Gilchrist didn’t play for the 16U team but did make the 17U club later.
It's great that Whitehead's on the US national team's radar, another place where only the elite players are picked. None of these players has chosen St. John's, but these are the kinds of players that the program would love to recruit to get to the highest levels of college basketball.