The Harvard Crimson is reporting that seven-foot center Ugo Okam from Montverde Academy in Florida committed to Tommy Amaker and the Harvard hoops program tonight. According to multiple reports, including my own investigations, Okam narrowed down his choice to either Harvard or Penn weeks ago. He was Penn’s best remaining prospect as a true post presence.

I spoke with Okam’s coach, Kevin Sutton, a week ago and he indicated that Ugo would be waiting until early November to announce his decision, when he can sign a commitment during the early signing period for the Ivy League. Sutton said that Okam is a tremendous shot blocker with excellent timing, but “his defense is way ahead of his offense at this point.” While you have to take any coach’s praises with a grain of salt, he added that Okam is an extremely hard worker who has showed vast and rapid improvement since picking up the game four years ago after moving from Nigeria. He mentioned that Penn’s coaches were blown away by his improvements every time they saw him. On the offensive side, he said he still has a lot to improve, but noted a good ability to finish when he catches the ball in the post and added that he shoots around 63% from the line.

I have no information on why Okam chose Harvard, and neither does The Crimson. While Glen Miller has already put together what seems like an already stellar class of recruits, you never want to lose out on a legitimate seven-footer who can probably contribute immediately on defense and rebounding. Harvard really needed him, as they had just one other recruit despite an ambitious recruiting season. From what I know of Amaker’s recruiting tactics, I’m sure he made that abundantly clear. That’s not to say Miller and Co. weren’t just as aggressive, but it’s the only analysis I can offer at this point.  I’ll try to get some more information in the next couple of days.

According to North Star basketball blog’s Twitter feed, 6-foot-3 guard Miles Cartwright from Loyola High School in Los Angeles has committed to Penn.This is astoundingly Penn’s seventh reported verbal commitment to the class of 2014 and its fifth guard (with nobody who appears to be a true point guard to eventually back up Zack Rosen). North Star called it “a fantastic get for the Quakers.”

The twitter posts call Cartwright a big-time scorer, and the stats I’ve found definitely support that. He led Loyola in scoring last year when they went to the state regional finals. I couldn’t find his scoring average but I did read that he scored 40 points and dished 10 assists on Dec. 12, 2008 against Centennial High School (Corona). He also had a 37-point game. As a So Cal kid, he faced fellow recruit Austin Kelly and Harvard-Westlake twice and split the series.

Continue after the jump for more information on Cartwright from ESPN and some blogs, and my own analysis of the news. (more…)

I was working on confirming that Penn basketball got another verbal recruit today, but the Cornell Basketball Blog beat me to the punch. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of their report, all signs do seem to indicate that 6-foot-3 guard Dau Jok from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa visited Penn over the weekend and gave the coaches a verbal commitment sometime this afternoon. I’ll continue working on confirming this information myself, but until then, here are some very interesting tidbits I came upon while digging up this story:

1. Jok is considered a supremely talented shooter, a true three-point specialist. This blog entry by a Montana basketball blogger mentions a report that says Jok “has almost unlimited range” and “has never met a 3 point shot that he didn’t like.” ESPN called him “the best catch-and-shoot player at the Hoop City Classic” this past July. From what I’ve read, Jok’s stock soared over the summer as he tore it up in AAU ball. I haven’t found any definite numbers for his high school stats yet but I’ll keep looking and post them when I do. I did find one blog post that said he was 54-for-138 from three (39.1%) last year.
2. That last post by Jared Todd on  Illinoishsbasketball.com presents some very interesting info about his recruitment and the rest of his game. He says “Dau is not a one-dimensional player, as he is also a very good passer and defender. He also consistently displays great leadership qualities, and is a very vocal player on the court.” As far as recruiting, Jok had a very long list which included a number of Ivies, but the interesting thing that Todd mentions is that Dau was looking for a school with “good education, coaching staff, a great fan base and basketball family, good tradition, and a chance to play for championships, either conference or NCAA.” Penn obviously seems to fit the bill. That article was posted Sept. 16, and Todd says “Dau doesn’t plan to make his decision anytime soon, as he wants a chance to take a strong look at all the schools recruiting him.” Either he got that opportunity within the last two weeks, or Miller, Gallagher and Co. were able to convince him that Penn perfectly fit his criteria.
3. Perhaps the most interesting fact about this kid is his basketball pedigree. That same story mentions that he is the nephew of former 7-7 NBA center Manute Bol and the first cousin of current Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng. And the good Jok genes extend to his brother Peter, who is a 6-4 high school freshman guard that numerous sites list as one of the top talents in the country for the Class of 2013 (some even have him No. 1).

And just before finishing the writing of this post, I found more confirmation on the twitter feed for Kingdom Hoops, an AAU program started by Jake Sullivan, who used to coach Jok’s AAU team. The post says “Congratulations to Dau Jok for signing with Penn! Awesome to see him go to an Ivy League school.”

It looks like Penn has its sixth recruit for the Class of 2014 in the bag, and a very promising one at that. Maybe even better if his brother follows him a few years from now, or anyone else in his family for that matter.

Along with the story about the Athletic Department’s marketing initiatives that I wrote for today’s paper, there was an important but brief sidebar that did not make it online. (As always, PDF here.)

The Athletic Department is likely to continue the controversial season-ticket policy it introduced last season. Student seats behind the west-end basket are general admission, with the lower level reserved for participants in The Line.

“We still occasionally have internal discussions,” senior associate director of athletics Alanna Shanahan said, “but at this point, we’re still holding to the fact that hopefully, long term, this will pay dividends.”

Shanahan added that the Athletic Department is internally divided into two opinions. She declined to say where Athletic Director Steve Bilsky fit, or if he straddled both.

“There’s always a camp of people that say, ‘Lets set the standard and hold to it, and if our basketball program is as successful as we all hope, then we’ll be happy that we did this,’” Shanahan said. “Then there’s the other camp that says, ‘Wow, isn’t it painful? We have only maybe 50% of that section filled. Wouldn’t it be nice to allow, maybe five minutes into the game, studnets who are sitting in the upper level down to fill that section.’

“I think there are merits to both. And we’ll probably have that internal battle royal again in the next week or two. And that’s why I say it’s always a tough discussion.”

For now, though, it looks like the policy isn’t changing.

“If you had to ask me today,” Shanahan said yesterday, “I think we would hold to the protocol that we put in place and hope that the interest grows once again, the team success grows and once again, we have that section packed.”

Expect more coverage on The Line as the date — Oct. 9 — draws nearer and as Penn makes its decision final.

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My colleague Noah Rosenstein reported last night on men’s basketball recruit Cameron Gunter.  The 6-foot-8 forward/center has spoken with the Philadelphia Inquirer and confirmed to them that he is, in fact, headed to Penn.

After Penn nabbed its second 2010 recruit earlier this month, it appears that Glen Miler has grabbed two more recruits.

And just like Austin Kelly, these new recruits hail from the Los Angeles area.

According to the LA Times,  Capistrano Valley (Mission Viejo, Calif) teammates Casey James (6-foot-3 guard) and Kevin Panzer (6-8 forward) have both committed to Penn. James originally gave an early verbal commitment to San Diego back in 2007 (according to ESPN insider), but he’s since backed out of that.

ESPN gives James a 76 grade and in December 2007 called him  “the most prolific shooter in the west” alongside a Santa Clara signee. But perhaps Panzer is the bigger catch. For one, he definitely is coming to Penn, as ESPN insider, Rivals and CBB all have him listed as a Penn commit (ESPN has yet to change James’ status from the SD verbal). Though he’s just the 164th best forward, Panzer gets a 78 from ESPN, which last September said “At his size there may not be another 4-man around the country that can shoot like him.” He looked at four Pac-10 schools (Cal, Arizona State, Stanford and Washington) as well as San Diego, Colorado and Gonzaga (the last two schools were on his short list with Penn).

If nothing else, check out this myspace video with Panzer and James. It looks like Penn is going to get some more dunkers.

But with the addition of Panzer — will there be Panzer tank-inspired roll outs?– and probably James as well, Penn would have six players from California on its 2010-11 roster: Panzer, James, Kelly, incoming freshman Malcolm Washington (Denzel’s son), and rising juniors Conor Turley and  Tyler Bernardini.

Of course, that’s assuming no more Californians transfer away.

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In other Ivy recruiting news, it appears that Pe’Shon Howard has backed down from his earlier statement (see #3) that he’d attend Harvard if admitted. Now, in an email to ESPN.com, he said after discussing the matter, he’s “wide open and considering every school in the country.” In addition to the Crimson, he’s looking at Maryland, Stanford, Arkansas, Xavier and other big conference schools.

It might still be over 15 months before he ever plays for Penn, but Austin Kelly is going to be a Quakers hoopster.

Californiapreps.com, a service of Rivals, is reporting that the North Hollywood, Calif., shooting guard from the class of 2010 has verbally committed to Glen Miller’s program. (You’ll need an account for that site, so see the full text of the article after the jump.)

According to the report, the 6-foot-2 Kelly decided on Penn because of the strong academics, as well as  “a strong relationship with the coaches.”

ESPN Insider gives Kelly a 74 grade, which is in the 70-79 range that states: “Player either can earn a scholarship to a top national Division I program or contribute significantly as a freshman at the mid-major level.” Specifically,

Kelly has a wiry frame with decent length. He has solid speed and quickness, but he does get great lift on his jump shot. His strength is his jump shooting ability and he is equally efficient in the mid-range area as he is out to the stripe. He has a tendency to shoot off the dribble to get into rhythm, especially in the mid-range area. His shot has a solid release, but he’ll need to get stronger to pull-up in traffic. In addition to increasing his strength, he definitely needs to address his perimeter handle. He is solid going right, but overall his handle is shaky, especially when he’s trying to separate from defenders.

Fortunately, Kelly realizes he needs to improve his strength. “I have to get a lot bigger to be effective at the Division I level. My biggest challenge is going to be my strength,” according to the report.

Kelly led Harvard-Westlake to the Division III California State semifinals before losing to Ocean View, 79-63. Kelly had a team-high 16 points in the game. Overall, his team was 28-7, and won the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section championship with a 13-1 league record.

(HT Basketball U boards)

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1) Penn Athletics finally made its official announcement regarding the men’s basketball recruits for the Class of 2013. As I mentioned in a post  last week, the official class only includes three of the five incoming freshmen: Carson Sullivan, Brian Fitzpatrick and Sean Mullan. The other two players, Denzel Washington’s son Malcolm and Jack Eggleston’s brother Tommy, were not listed because they are considered “preferred walk-ons.” None of the five newcomers are listed yet on the 2009-10 roster.

2) If you read my story a few weeks ago, you already know that all the freshmen except Mullan have been playing in the Delaware County Pro-Am summer basketball league. The current Penn players’ team is Trad Jazz, which has gone 2-6 so far. Their next game is tomorrow against UNUM (6-2), which includes a number of notable former Penn hoopsters like Brian Grandieri, Mark Zoller, Michael Jordan, Geoff Owens and Jeff Schiffner. Trad Jazz will play its last game Sunday as the league’s playoffs begin Monday, though the squad is unlikely to make the postseason.

3) Trad Jazz got both of its wins before Zach Rosen left for Israel. Rosen and Team USA got off to a great start at the Maccabiah games with a blowout win over Mexico, 112-13 (that is not a typo; they actually won by 99 points). Rosen put up eight points and four assists. The next game was a revenge match against France, which beat the  US and forced them to settle for Bronze in 2005, and returned most of its players for the 2009 games. The US won 131-77 behind 25 points by Todd Golden and 23 points by Dan Grunfeld (son of Wizards GM Ernie). Rosen’s line — five points, four assists, three rebounds.

The US was finally tested in its third game of group play against Russia. It was a close game that came down to the end, with the score tied at 71 and just seven seconds remaining. Russia missed the last shot, but they managed a tip-in with .5 seconds remaining and held on for the win. With the loss the US had to beat Argentina to advance to the semi-finals, and the rules are such that a 4-or-more point victory would yield them the first seed and a semi-final matchup with Canada while a less-than-4 point victory would have meant the second seed and a semi-final bout with defending champion Israel.

Team USA  beat Argentina 97-89 today behind Grunfeld’s 25 points and eight rebounds. Rosen added eight points and four assists. Now the US is set to play Canada tomorrow at 4 p.m. Israeli time (which is 9 a.m. EDT) with a chance to play the winner of Argentina-Israel in the championship.

It’s been weeks since my original post about Sean Mullan, a basketball recruit from Australia. I haven’t heard back from Mullan since that original post, so I haven’t been able to provide an update on his status… until now. Although I still haven’t heard back from the man himself, a reliable source confirmed today that Mullan is officially coming to Penn.

It seems that this might have been in the books for a while at this point.  When I heard from his mother in late May she indicated that everything was just about squared away, but they hadn’t received their official documents yet. Then Sean’s name showed up in the Penn Directories a few weeks ago, but I still could not take that as confirmation that he was definitely coming.

With Mullan in the bag, the Quakers’ 2009 recruiting class is up to five players (though two are unofficial). Mullan joins Carson Sullivan and Brian Fitzpatrick as the official recruits for 2009, while Malcolm Washington and Tommy Eggleston will also join the team as “preferred walk-ons.” The distinction, as far as I know, is virtually irrelevant. Penn Athletics has not released an official list of this year’s recruits, but it should come very soon. Washington and Eggleston will not be on the official list.

1) It’s been a rumor for a while, but the Indiapanolis Star reported that Tommy Eggleston (brother of hoopster Jack) is officially Penn-bound.  Tommy was being recruited in football and basketball, but years of growing up with Jack must have worn off on him, because basketball was his first love. So when his best football offers were to be a recruited walk-on at a D-1 school, he switched his focus to basketball and chose to commit to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Football inevitably complicated the situation, because Tommy applied to Penn after visiting as a football recruit, but was accepted after switching his focus to basketball. Glen Miller and Co. apparently had recruited him a bit early on in the year, although they did not mention him in any recent comments on recruiting. They did not speak to him until he was accepted (one month after he committed to UWM).  The Ivy League education and chance to play with his brother was enough to persuade Tommy to come to Penn.

Tommy is a 6-5 guard who was a safety in football. I don’t know too much about him as a player, but he must be a hard-nosed kid that can probably help the Quakers’ backcourt off the bench. UWM is a solid program that makes the tournament pretty regularly and made it to the Sweet 16 in 2005.

2) Various Penn recruiting classes were “officially” announced in the last few weeks. Of course, most of these recruits have been on the radar for a long time now, but as the applications were completed the official Athletic Department announcements were made. Here are links to the 2009 classes for defending Ivy League champion M. Soccer, W. Soccer, Volleyball, Wrestling, Softball, M. Tennis, and W. Golf.

3) The NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Committee decided that the 2010 Women’s Lacrosse Final Four will once again be held in Towson, Md. It marks the third time in a row that Towson University hosts the event, and the 12th time since 1986 that the championship games take place in Maryland. (1986, 1987, 1993, 1994 – University of Maryland, College Park; 1998 – University of Maryland, Baltimore County; 1999, 2001 - Johns Hopkins University; 2002 – Loyola College (Maryland); 2005 – U.S. Naval Academy).

1) Tomorrow’s big game is approaching as the the W. Lax team heads to Towson, Md., for the Final Four contest against Northwestern (much more on The Buzz tomorrow). Here’s the last interview with some Quakers before they left West Philadelphia.

2) Today Penn Athletics formally announced the incoming football freshmen class. Perhaps the highlight of the 34-person class is quarterback Billy Ragone (Chesire, Conn.), who was a 2008 Wendy’s Heisman nominee and Connecticut State Player of the Year, as voted by some publications.

3) Here’s an interesting look at the commercialization of college sports. It’s not specifically relevant to Penn (the Ivy League is the conference the least worried about increasing its profits, in my opinion), but it’s a compelling look at the NCAA as a whole. However, you need an account with The Chronicle of Higher Education to read the article, so I’ll paste the full text after the jump.

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