South Bend, Stanford and ... Gran Canaria (?)
by dillon77 (2019-06-27 10:31:37)
Edited on 2019-06-27 10:36:55
Post Reply Return to McGraw's Bench

Was watching another event last night so missed out on the fun. Will add comments on the "day after," plus one news item that might actually fit in.

- South Bend. Not surprised that it's Deja Kelly coming in for an official visit (OV) with Sedona Prince, given that they know each other and both have also curtailed long-term understandings with the U of Texas.

I'm sure MM, the coaches & staff and players on campus will roll out the welcomes in an impressive fashion. Sure the connections with players will be sound and the new facilities shown.

Hard to gauge how Prince and Kelly will react to the academic/social fit with ND (or how important that is), given that it's summer session. Will they be looking for something like Austin? Or something different? Eugene/Oregon and ND/South Bend offer some contrasts.

Kelly and Clark are different types of point guards. While Clark is a PG, she also can slide over to the shooting guard slot and has good size. In that sense, she reminds me a bit of the Mabrey/Young concept of tall guards being leads. Kelly is 5'7"/5'8" and although she can score, is much more of a traditional PG, as is Olivia Miles in the 2021 class. So, the staff seems to be looking at/hedging their bets.
Given that Jordan Nixon is on her way out, perhaps both? We'll see how the mutual interest is...

(I'm a fan -- big fan -- of Clark, but in all fairness, Kelly has been garnering solid review since she re-opened up her college search, both at the HS and AAU ranks.)

btw, it's been (and could be) awhile since Sedona Prince has been on a basketball court. However, if here health checks out, I think she'd be a huge positive for UConn, Oregon and Notre Dame, particularly the Irish. I think the coaches' experience of working with the Shepard/Turner/Westbeld trio would come in handy with Prince/Vaughn/Marshall. And for some reason, I think she'd mesh well with Brunelle...just a gut. Not trying to get too high or low here (the hits keep coming to do that), but crossing fingers here.

- Stanford. Brooks Demetre committing there is not much of a surprise, in the same way that Anaya Peoples was virtually a given to ND.
What's interesting in these days of transfers is how Tara manages to keep much larger rosters than ND or UConn but the vast majority of her players stay. Is it the allure/combination of Stanford's campus and academics? Their only transfers are graduates (and they seemingly only come to ND). Best of my knowledge, Tara also employs an all-female coaching staff.

- Gran Canaria. Huh? Many of us have been talking about whether ND will avail itself to the international market. One of the reasons given for not doing that was the expense/hassle of finding the right players. Well, the free market has offered solutions: there was an open house for players in New Zealand/Australia recently and the folks at Blue Star just had their first camp in Europe (off the coast of Spain).
Here's a link to Blue Star's promotion piece, but it does offer pictures and some details on the players who attended.
The big world can get smaller....










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