John Egbunu C / Drew Davis PG, Eagles Landing HS, McDonough GA

[Mama_Bull]

Egbunu #45

[Mama_Bull]

From Hoopscoop back in December. Just wanted to have it included in this thread.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

"He's the biggest sleeper to come down the pike in a long time." That's what

Linzy Davis

, who is the head coach of Team Georgia Elite Christian, is telling us about 7'0 Jr

John Egbunu

from McDonough (Eagles Landing) GA, who, along with 6'0 Jr

Drew Davis

from McDonough (Eagles Landing) GA, made an early verbal commitment last night to South Florida. "Egbunu has the size, skills, athleticism, and natural talent necessary to be the best player that I've ever coached," says Davis. And that's a pretty strong statement when one remembers that

Shareff Abdur-Rahim

played for Team Georgia back in the mid-90's and that

Carmelo Anthony

heads a long list of great players that Davis has had on the

USA 22-Under National Team

that competes annually in Tourcoing, France. "He's like a baby

Dwight Howard

," says Davis. "He has a 38-inch vertical leap, dunks everything at the rim, runs the court like a guard, and is improving as fast as any player that I've ever coached." Davis also tells that Egbunu, who has only been in the United States a year, was just a 6'7 8th Grader back when he first saw him three years ago in Bauchi, Nigeria. "Egbunu does need to continue to develop his upper body strength and work on his mid-range game, but I think he has a chance to be the best player in the nation by the time he graduates from high school a year-and-a-half from now and someday may be the #1-pick in the NBA Draft." Obviously this is a case, whereby, Bulls assistant coach

Steve Roccaforte

, who recruited a long list of Davis' former players (i.e.

Anthony Rice

,

Robert Dozier

,

Joey Dorsey

,

Shawn Taggart,

and

Almamy Thiero

) to the University of Memphis, has once again taken advantage of his old ties to pull off what appears to be a major coup. The other piece to the puzzle is Davis' son. "Drew can shoot the three and plays good defense, but his primary job is attacking the paint and lobbing it into Egbunu." And, if Egbunu is half as good as Davis thinks he is, then the Bulls have a legitimate top five-ranked recruiting class on our list of the

Top Recruiting Classes To-Date for the Class of 2013

.

And this comes right on the heels of South Florida's current recruiting class, which is ranked #13 on our list of the

Top Recruiting Classes To-Date for the Class of 2012

and includes 6'11

Waverly Austin

from Palm Beach (JC) FL, 6'5

Musa Abdul-Aleen

from Georgia Perimeter (JC) GA, and 6'4

Javontae Hawkins

from Huntington (Prep) WV. If you will recall, those first two guys are two of the top-ranked junior college players in the nation and Hawkins is a borderline top 100-ranked senior nationally. And all this is important, because Bulls head coach

Stan Heath

hired

Steve Roccaforte

, who previously was the head coach at Lamar, this fall and the plan was to turn things around in a hurry. It looks like it's not only mission accomplished, but that Roccaforte also deserves both a raise and some serious consideration for another head coaching job in the not too distant future.

http://www.hoopscooponline.com/members/hot-dec-2011.asp

[Triple B]

Egbunu #45

I hope his play at the 1:30 point was because he had 4 fouls ...

[Vega]

Egbunu #45

I hope his play at the 1:30 point was because he had 4 fouls ...

No it was just a soft ass play by him. You see that at times during those all star type games unless the guy is just a defense first kind of player.

[CPR]

I just noticed John Egbunu made Rivals top 150 players. Hopefully, he's a solid verbal.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/basketball/recruiting/player-John-Egbunu-137603

[Mama_Bull]

I just noticed John Egbunu made Rivals top 150 players. Hopefully, he's a solid verbal.

http://rivals.yahoo....n-Egbunu-137603

That was already mentioned on the 2nd page of this thread. His ranking hasn't changed since.

Since he lives with his AAU coach and his son, our other verbal, he appears to be a solid USF verbal.

[Vega]

I just noticed John Egbunu made Rivals top 150 players. Hopefully, he's a solid verbal.

http://rivals.yahoo....n-Egbunu-137603

That was already mentioned on the 2nd page of this thread. His ranking hasn't changed since.

Since he lives with his AAU coach and his son, our other verbal, he appears to be a solid USF verbal.

Well as long as USF doesn't pull Drew Davis' scholarship Egbunu will sign and play for USF fall after next. I doubt any other school, except for some Mid to Low majors will except the conditions that USF had to in order to get Egbunu, unless he can improve enough to be recognized as an elite level prospect over the next few months. He is an elite level rebounder already imo.

I'm still hoping Drew Davis can prove the skeptics wrong and be an important piece for USF at some point in his career.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Vega

[Mama_Bull]

I just noticed John Egbunu made Rivals top 150 players. Hopefully, he's a solid verbal.

http://rivals.yahoo....n-Egbunu-137603

That was already mentioned on the 2nd page of this thread. His ranking hasn't changed since.

Since he lives with his AAU coach and his son, our other verbal, he appears to be a solid USF verbal.

Well as long as USF doesn't pull Drew Davis' scholarship Egbunu will sign and play for USF fall after next. I doubt any other school, except for some Mid to Low majors will except the conditions that USF had to in order to get Egbunu, unless he can improve enough to be recognized as an elite level prospect over the next few months. He is an elite level rebounder already imo.

I'm still hoping Drew Davis can prove the skeptics wrong and be an important piece for USF at some point in his career.

I know you are unhappy with D Davis, but I'm not sure why.

He certainly has been playing with elite competition around the world for several years on US teams and seems to be a very good outside shooter. I do understand that he is not a true point guard.

[Vega]

I just noticed John Egbunu made Rivals top 150 players. Hopefully, he's a solid verbal.

http://rivals.yahoo....n-Egbunu-137603

That was already mentioned on the 2nd page of this thread. His ranking hasn't changed since.

Since he lives with his AAU coach and his son, our other verbal, he appears to be a solid USF verbal.

Well as long as USF doesn't pull Drew Davis' scholarship Egbunu will sign and play for USF fall after next. I doubt any other school, except for some Mid to Low majors will except the conditions that USF had to in order to get Egbunu, unless he can improve enough to be recognized as an elite level prospect over the next few months. He is an elite level rebounder already imo.

I'm still hoping Drew Davis can prove the skeptics wrong and be an important piece for USF at some point in his career.

I know you are unhappy with D Davis, but I'm not sure why.

He certainly has been playing with elite competition around the world for several years on US teams and seems to be a very good outside shooter. I do understand that he is not a true point guard.

Mama I'm not unhappy with Drew, I'm just looking at the fact that he's not even considered a top 25 prospect in the state of Georgia for the 2013 class. No pro or novice recruiting analyst, outside of the 1 or 2 that Linzy Davis can influence, even has Drew on their list of High Major prospects. Linzy Davis is also the reason why his son gets to play on 1 of the National teams that get to travel the world.

However the main reason why I'm such a skeptic is Coach Heath's recruiting of PGs, Combo guards, and SGs for the class of 2013. The USF staff would not be so heavy after those kind of players if they believed Drew Davis is talented enough at this point to get meaningful minutes on the High Major level as a PG or SG. It's looking like USF is going to sign at least 2 more guards for the upcoming class.

What Drew has going for him is he can shoot the open three but he's not a great athlete, ball handler, or defender at this point. I said before that he is likely a shorter version of Shaun Noriega.

I do hope that myself, those that write about recruiting, and Coach Heath are proven wrong about Drew in the long run. I wasted scholarship is not a good thing.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Vega

[Paisa el Toro]

We weren't too happy with Ant Collins when he committed either. The knock on Collins was that was small, played in a division with private Houston high schools, and was being recruited by Baylor to be a backup PG. He turned out ok. I hope Drew Davis can be even half as clutch as Collins has turned out to be.