Busy Two Days on the Road for the Staff

Monday:

Coach Ollie had an in-home visit with center Diamond Stone out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Stone is a top ten player in 2015. UConn has been on him hard for a few months now but many people didn’t know because Diamond and his family don’t talk much about his recruiting.

Coach Hobbs was in Jacksonville, Florida to watch 2016 center Udoka Azubuike. Azubuike is very new to basketball and is bursting on to the national spotlight. He has already found himself as a top 15 recruit in 2016.

The final person the staff watched was center Georgios Papagiannis. Coach Miller was in to watch the top 50 recruit in 2015 at his high school. He’s another player that is relatively new to recruiting so schools are still evaluating him.

Tuesday:

Once again head coach Kevin Ollie had another huge in-home visit. This time is was with top five combo guard Malik Newman out of Jackson, Mississippi. This is the first time UConn has been mentioned in his recruitment publicly. He has recently been saying that he and Diamond Stone are going to try and attend the same college. Coach Ollie could be trying to make that happen at UConn.

Coach Hobbs was once again watching a big man in Florida. This time it was Ted Kapita of Florida Air Academy. He’s another new recruit that UConn is expressing interest in. He could be a name to watch in the future as he is also becoming a much bigger name in college basketball recruiting.

On Tuesday coach Miller was in New Jersey to watch Tyus Battle once again. This is the second time that UConn has been in to watch him workout this month, the first time coach Ollie was in attendance. It is becoming clear that the top 15 player in 2016 is becoming the prime target for Kevin Ollie and his staff in his class. After watching Battle coach Miller then made the drive to Roselle Catholic High School to see 2015 power forward Chris Silva. At this point Silva doesn’t have an offer from UConn but his high school coach recently told me that the staff is really interested in him.

———

Now we wait and see what surprises the UConn coaching staff has in store for us today. Today is the last day that in-home visits can occur before this recruiting period ends. Then on Friday an evaluation period begins and the coaches will once again be out watching recruits play as the EYBL will be starting and many other tournament will be held throughout the weekend.

by