Odds and Ends: Prospects

Hi folks I have a handful of interesting and some sad, odds and ends about some of the Griz and Bobcat basketball signees / commits that I thought I might share. Some might be a little older than others, but I hope it is something you find interesting.

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• Danny Little from Billings Skyview and Montana State 2011 commit was featured in a Q. and A. article today by the Billing Gazette. Little talks about Skyview’s current season as well as why he choose to commit to the Bobcat program. You should check it out here.

• Chris McCall from Cheyenne high school in Nevada and a Bobcat 2010 signee was scheduled to play his first game of the post season this past Wednesday, but that did not happen. The Sunset Region boy’s basketball playoffs were postponed this week when Western high school filed in court complaint and motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction was granted until the matter could be heard. At issue Western was forced to forfeit 4 games because a player was ruled ineligible. The court handed down a ruling earlier today giving Western 2 games back. The Sunset Region is now scrambling to reschedule the tourney.

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Griz recruit: Kyle Noreen

I thought I did something on this kid last summer but looking through my blog it does not appear that I have. If I am wrong consider this a pretty good update.

I have heard that the Montana basketball staff is recruiting Kyle Noreen from the Minnesota Transitions Charter high school MTC high school is a very small private school but unlike a lot of small prep schools I have written about recently this school is more known for it academics than basketball, with the one exception of producing D-1 basketball prospects whose last name is Noreen.

Kyle Noreen is a 6-5 junior wing for MTC high school, and will play the guard or small forward spot in college depending on which program he eventually signs with. His older brother Kevin is a 6-10 forward currently playing for Boston College, and is the current state of Minnesota all time scoring champion, and average well over 30 points a game his senior year. As a junior for MTC, Kyle is averaging 18.3 points, 8.5 rebounds, 8.6 assists, and 5.1 steals per game while shooting 54 percent from the floor this year.

Griz recruit: Austin Seferian-Jenkins

But I would not get your hopes up…

I have heard that the Griz have offered junior Austin Seferian-Jenkins of Gig Harbor Washington high school. Seferian-Jenkins is a 6-7 (maybe a little bigger) 250 pound post prospect, but I am guessing that he will be playing another sport in college.

The big fly in the ointment that may interfere with Wayne Tinkle’s hopes about getting him in a Griz uniform is the fact that, Seferian-Jenkins is ranked by some as the #1 tight end football prospect in the country, so that may influence his final decision as where he goes to school.

I do not have Austin Seferian-Jenkins full stats for the season, but I believe he is averaging about 16 points a game and close to double digits in rebounds. In his last Game in the State tourney he scored 30 points.

Future Bobcat update: Ausha Cole

Aush Cole is the far right

With my vacation of earlier this month I left a few things on the table. I will try to catch up on a few of them that I particularly enjoyed.

The East Valley Tribune (Phoenix, Arizona area newspaper) had a very nice article on the Gilbert highs school basketball team and its diminutive but very good girl’s basketball team. The Gilbert high school team features Montana State Bobcat signee 5-6 Ausha Cole as well as Weber State signee 5-5 Justine Johnson. Additionally 5-3 Whitney Southerland, is also expected to play basketball, possibly Yale, at the next level.

Here is what the Gilbert coach had to say about Cole in the article.

The leader on defense is Cole. She has signed a letter of intent to play at Montana State. Bunger says Cole is as good a defensive player as he has coached in 30 years. She can be physical with anyone she guards and has the quickness to match any opponent she faces.

“Every game I look forward to the matchup (defensively) I have,” Cole said. “I like the challenge of guarding the other team’s best player.”

It really is a pretty good article if you are looking for some information on a future Bobcat, but it also proves that you can be a State Championship contender even with your tallest player being under 5-8. You should check it out.

The Griz lose one to … Duke

Again normally I do not do stories on players who the Cat’s and Griz lose out to but as a Montana State and North Carolina fan, this one was real interesting to me, on a lot of levels. I thought I would pass it along.

A few months ago Southern Idaho junior college player, Carrick Felix’s top 3 schools were Idaho, Montana and Kent State. Felix was coming off a redshirt year for SIU, and was getting some D-1 attention, but mostly at the low-major level. Things have changed since then.

The list of schools Felix has been receiving attention from, since the beginning of the year includes Arizona State, West Virginia, Marquette, Clemson and ACC power Duke. Recently Duke offered Felix and he snatched up the offer.

Felix is a 6-6 small forward who is averaging 14.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.3 blocks a game that will have three years of D-1 eligibility starting next year.

Bobcat recruit: Pierson Williams

Brice Jones 13 and Pierson Williams 22

Section Sports.com (part of the Rivals network) who covers California prep sports recently had an article on Taft High school’s Pierson Williams entitled Taft’s Unsung Hero. In that article it mentioned that Montana State basketball program seems to be the most serious contender for his services this spring.

Williams is a 6-4 shooting guard prospect for the powerful Taft high school located in Woodland Hills, California. Taft features two other players that I know have signed with D-1 teams already in book end forwards Bryce Jones (USC) and Deandre Daniels (Texas) both rated as 4 star prospects. Additionally junior point guard Spencer Dinwiddie is also considered to be an upper end Pac-10 prospect. There may be other D-1 prospects on Taft’s roster but I am too lazy to do the research.

This season Williams is averaging 10 points, 2 assists, and 3 rebounds, while shooting 55% from the field, 48% from beyond the three point arc and, 90% from the free throw line. Williams is a deep three point threat who someone told me to compare to Griz Ryan Staudacher but more athletic. He can drive the lane also, but this year main role is to keep defensive from collapsing on Daniels and Jones.

Bobcats recruit: Davion Pearson

I have heard that the Bobcat basketball staff is recruiting Davion Pearson from Palo Verde high school near Las Vegas, Nevada. Pearson is a 5-11 (ish) 175 pound senior point guard for Palo Verde, one of the top high school teams in the State.

Palo Verde feature 3 D-1 prospects including 6-6 forward Moses Mogan who signed in November with DePaul. Palo Verde main conference rival is Cheyenne high school who features Montana State signee Chris McCall. McCall and Pearson have been playing against each other for the past four years and have played together quite a bit in AAU ball.

Pearson is averaging 10 points, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 4 rebounds a game while shooting 40% from the fields, 27% from beyond 3 point line and 68% from the charity stripe. This year Pearson’s scoring numbers are down a little this year as he moved full time to the point guard but he has had a couple very big scoring nights this year with a couple 25 point games.