Florida's, Cincinnati's task: Keep top recruits coming

Sporting News, The, July 12, 1999 by Mike DeCourcy

Other programs ruled March the past couple seasons the way Florida and Cincinnati hope they will in the near future. This is their month, though. The July recruiting period has begun, and Billy Donovan and Bob Huggins own the road. For now.

As much of an accomplishment as it was for these schools to flood their rosters with talent and size in the past two recruiting classes, it may be more of a challenge to keep the players flowing.

Many prospects who sign with the traditional elite--Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina--are at least initially willing to wait for playing time. With whose brand-name recognition is a step below, stringing together two or three knockout recruiting classes becomes a more difficult sell.

"You deal with different things," says Donovan, the Florida coach. "The first thing was, `There's no tradition. It's a football school.' And then, because we had some success, the circumstances change.

"I think we're going to have to work harder, although we're probably not going to be in a position to have a top-five or top-10 recruiting class because there's just not enough scholarships. I don't look at the ratings as being the key to what we're doing."

In the past two years, Cincinnati and Florida signed a combined six McDonald's All-Americans (Florida guards Brett Nelson and Ted Dupay and forwards Mike Miller and Donnell Harvey, and Cincinnati guards DerMarr Johnson and Kenny Satterfield). They also landed the 1998 junior college player of the year (Bearcats forward Pete Mickeal) and 14 top-100 players.

That's two schools--two schools whose players aren't Wildcats, Blue Devils or Tar Heels--grabbing 7 percent of the top 100 and 15 percent of the available McDonald's All-Americans.

So Cincinnati and Florida are well-stocked, but each still needs more in order to continue building and winning.

Having barged into the McDonald's All-American club, Florida and Cincinnati are initially welcomed by those kinds of players. If a place is good enough for Harvey or Johnson-two of the top three prospects in the class of '99--guys figure it's worth a look. "There may be less work getting involved," Donovan says, "but there's as much leg work or more to sign them."

The trouble is convincing prospects there are vacancies. "We've got five seniors, four of them that are going to play an average of 26 or 27 minutes a game," says assistant coach Mick Cronin, Cincinnati's lead recruiter. "One thing you do is recruit what you need, and that way you're not lying to people. You sit down and show people what you've got. It's not a bunch of rhetoric. It's reality."

Cincinnati is recruiting for 2000-01 as though 1999-2000 will be such a smash for Johnson he'll follow seniors Mickeal and Kenyon Martin into the NBA draft.

That means wing scorers are the first priority, and the Bearcats will look at 6-5 South Carolina native Jerome Harper of Oak Hill Academy and Cleveland's 6-6 Julius Johnson. They will explore the junior colleges after one year of self-imposed restrictions against recruiting there. There is room up front, with only three power players (6-7 Eugene Land, 6-10 Donald Little and 6-11 BJ. Grove) returning after next season. Oak Hill's 6-9 Abdou Diame is a target

"The hardest thing for us to sign would be a point guard," says Cronin, who took care of that spot by landing sophomore Steve Logan and incoming freshman Satterfield the previous two years. "Other than that, every position has openings."

Likewise, in a year loaded with great playmakers, Donovan is not shopping for a point guard. He has three scholarships to spend but likely will keep one for the following year.

His first goal is a big man to deepen the front line, and 6-9 Darius Miles of East St. Louis, III., is in the mix. Diame plays for the same club team as Harvey, so that could help. Florida also wants a wing to complement Miller. That could be Harper or local star Orien Greene of Gainesville High.

Along with a few of the same targets, both schools have in common a focused approach. They identify players they can sign and concentrate their attention on a short list

"I think you've got to be smart," Donovan says. "If there's a top-10 or -15 player in Durham, N.C., I'm not going to waste my time there. That does nothing for our program if I can say, `We finished second to Duke.' Big deal. He's playing for Duke."

Mike DeCourcy covers college basketball for the Cincinnati Enquirer. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com.

TSNumbers 36/10

The five-game assist-to-turnover ratio for point guard Chris Duhon at the USA Development Festival in Colorado Springs. Duhon made a statement for the top ranking in the Class of 2000 with a dominating performance, including 29 points and seven assists in directing the South team to a championship-game win. He likely earned a spot in next March's Nike Hoop Summit, which pits a team of U.S. high school players against an international all-star team. Duhon is leaning toward Duke, although the Blue Devils signed last year's top point guard, Jason Williams. Kentucky is also in the hunt. --M.D.