First of all, if you did not check out Doc's post on the Wear twins' transfers or C.Michael's rundown of the potential recruitment of Kadeem Jack, check those out. A big thanks to both of them for covering the story from every angle.
As of this morning, not much has changed, well except the fact that Zags Blog is saying Kentucky has jumped into the mix for the services of Kadeem Jack aka the kid who we all hope is going to backup the post play this season:
The Kadeem Jack Sweepstakes now includes two of the most storied programs in the history of college basketball.
The 6-foot-9 Jack plans to visit North Carolina and Kentucky sometime in the coming weeks, although no dates have been set.
"According to him, he said that he’s going to set up visits with North Carolina and Kentucky," said South Kent (Conn.) coach Kelvin Jefferson. "He said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to visit Kentucky and North Carolina.’"
Swell...UK is involved because they missed out on C.J. Leslie and Terrence Jones though the situation with Jones is still in flux. I guess Jack can expect a phone call from Lebron James or something. At any rate, Jack has to feel like he won the lottery. He had been recruited by some named programs but apparently none of them impressed him enough to entice him to campus this fall. Jack was readying himself to attend a prep school to work on his game. Now? He has the #1 and #2 teams on the all-time wins list knocking on his door. What's more is he knows he will play. The frontcourt depth for both schools is thin as one of my running shirts.That means he will play for a great coach in either case and see time on the court. Win-win situation for him.
The question for Roy Williams remains: Should he offer the kid a scholarship? As C.Michael pointed out, you can roll the dice on the basis of the present need for more frontcourt depth or you can pocket the scholarship and begin working in earnest on a big 2012 recruiting haul. And if these decisions were made in a vacuum then it might be easier but coming off a hugely disappointing season in 2010, Roy is feeling the pressure to make 2011 closer to UNC's average handicap. That would seemingly made the decision a no brainer. You offer the player now because you need help now. In many ways this is not unlike Duke getting Andre Dawkins a year early to mitigate a similar issue in their backcourt prior to 2010. Duke only has two serviceable guards heading into last season, Dawkins gave them three. The other caveat is UNC has one scholarship out there to SG Austin Rivers. If he comes in 2011 then no problem. Getting Jack and Rivers is certainly an upgrade over the Wears by most standards. If Rivers heads to Duke(which I think will happen based on UNC's logjam at SG in 2011) then you have a scholarship to use for 2012 and plenty of time to use it.
As for further evaluations of Jack, long time recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons weighed in with the Winston-Salem Journal:
"He's about the best high-school kid left," Gibbons said. "He would give them a 6-9 body. He's not real physical or strong, but he would at least be as effective as one of the Wears."
Not the kind of ringing endorsement Dave Telep at Scout.com has been offering up. Gibbons is giving you the basics here by saying: "He is at least good enough to plug into the particular leak in the dam UNC has right now and he also happens to be the only player left worth plugging into said leak." Nothing beyond that because either Gibbons has not seen him play or has and is not impressed. I do know some of the buzz surrounding Jack may be based on a 24 point, 20 rebound performance he had versus Villanova recruit JayVaughn Pinkston.
Take that with a grain of salt.