It's been a rumor for some time now, but now it's official. Toni Kukoc's son Marin Kukoc has committed to Penn. Dick Jerardi writes in today's Daily News: "Penn got a commitment from Marin Kukoc, Toni's son from Chicago. He is just the latest in what is shaping up as a terrific recruiting class."

What Jerardi says is right. Penn has a dynamite recruiting class coming in next year, no matter which way you slice it. I've been covering the Class of 2014 extensively here on The Buzz, and it now stands at seven total players: Steve Rennard, Casey James, Dau Jok, Miles Cartwright, Cameron Gunter, Fran Dougherty and Marin Kukoc.

As far as I know, it's not over yet. Kevin Panzer, who committed to Penn and then de-committed, is not out of the running to re-commit. I'll be clear: I don't know anything for sure, except that he hasn't made his decision yet and Penn is still pursuing him. And I also don't think Penn is done pursuing other options, even with the huge class they already have.

As for Kukoc, the NBA pedigree is obviously the first thing that sticks out. He is a 6-6/6-7 swingman at about 185 pounds (that's a guess on my part). I don't know much else about him at this point, but the DP should have a full story later today or tomorrow. But I posted some videos after the jump which will hopefully give a better sense of him as a player.

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As Zach wrote earlier today, Fran Dougherty, star center of Archbishop Wood basketball, announced his college decision today at 1:30 p.m. We weren't able to get details from the press conference, but a source has confirmed to me that Dougherty has chosen Penn. I'm told the Philadelphia Daily News will have more details shortly, and we'll provide them as well as they become available.

[Updated 2:29 p.m.] The Ivybball twitter has also confirmed that Dougherty announced he is joining the Quakers.

[Updated 2:45 p.m.] And now the Daily News has it up and confirmed as well.

From the little I've gathered, Dougherty is dubbed as a very tough player with good skills, but he's not the most athletic guy ever. At 6-8, 225, he's got solid size for an Ivy big man, which the Quakers need desperately. I'm unsure but curious how much Jerome Allen had to do with this. I know he's been active on the recruiting circuit, but there's no telling how much of an impact he's had over assistant coaches John Gallagher and Mike Martin. Regardless, this is more good news for Penn.

[Updated 4:33 p.m.]  Further reporting has revealed that Dougherty has actually been decided on Penn for some time now. He was accepted weeks ago, presumably in the early decision pool, and those close to the situation have known he was coming to Penn. Another important detail is that he played a great game against Roman Catholic High School earlier this season, scoring 22 points, grabbing 14 rebounds and notching four blocks. Roman is one of the best teams in Philadelphia and even up there in terms of national prominence. They've produced a number of NBA players including Marc Jackson, Rasual Butler and Eddie Griffin. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean anything for Dougherty, but it's certainly a good sign. Even more impressively, he played that game with a heavily bandaged foot that was later revealed to have a stress fracture.

Philly.com is reporting that St. Joseph's Prep senior Sean McGinn will attend Penn in the fall. He's 6-foot-4, 255 pounds and started at defensive end as a junior before also playing offensive tackle this past year.

He was also looking at Brown, but loved Penn from the beginning.

"When you combine the good academics and football with the fact that Penn's so close to home, it just makes sense," he said. "Growing up, going to games at Franklin Field and the Palestra, I always had a good feel for Penn. And during this process I've only heard good things."

Of course, winning the Ivy League championship can't hurt.

In addition to gridiron news, the article also mentions that Fran Dougherty, a 6-8 center on Archbishop Wood's basketball team, will announce his college decision today at 1:30. (However, I don't think it'll be televised like those press conferences top-level football recruits have on ESPNU.)

Despite the recent troubles of the Penn program, the Quakers are believed to be the favorite with Princeton, Lafayette and New Hampshire in the mix. Then again, he should fit right into this Penn team: he's currently sidelined with a stress fracture in his foot.

(HT Tannenwald)

In an exciting event for me as an aspiring journalist, the New York Times used some quotes from my preview of tonight's Penn-Temple matchup in a post about the game on their college sports blog. Given the apparent popularity of some of the comments these guys made, I figured I'd share some other worthwhile items from my interviews that weren't in the story. Also after the jump, an update on two of Penn's recruits.

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With the fairly unprecedented move to remove Glen Miller as head coach in the middle of the season, the biggest impact of the decision will perhaps be on recruiting. Miller had seemingly hedged his job to an extent with a very strong recruiting class, which was potentially jeopardized by his dismissal. Once my finals are over later today I'm going to look into more of the impact on recruiting, but the Northstar Basketball Blog has already begun to figure out just how this move might shake up the already shaky Class of 2014.

NBB reports that local product Steve Rennard from St. Joseph's HS in Metuchen, N. J., was accepted to Wharton this past week and will definitely be coming to Penn. Penn's other top local prize, big man Cameron Gunter, is more unsure of his status with the Quakers after Miller's move.  "Right now I'm just trying to get all the facts together and talk it through with my family," he said. "I don't know the full extent of the situation, so I can't comment on that right now." See the full text of NBB's report after the jump.

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This just in from the Inquirer: Running back-linebacker Sebastian Jaskowski has committed to Penn. The Wharton student-to-be from Moorestown, N.J., chose the Quakers over Princeton, Brown, and Harvard.

The Inquirer writes:

The 6-foot, 200-pound Jaskowski enjoyed a dominating season on both sides of the ball. He rushed for 1,578 yards and 19 touchdowns on 164 carries and caught 17 passes for 200 yards and a touchdown. At linebacker he recorded 68 tackles.

Jaskowski is expected to primarily play offense for Al Bagnoli, although the Quakers have a glut of young rushing talent.

Some bad news has dampened the sunny forecast of this recruiting season for Glen Miller and the men's basketball team. According to ESPN/Scouts Inc., California forward Kevin Panzer of Capistrano High School has decommitted from Penn. Panzer's decision was reportedly made in the last few days. In addition, fellow Golden State product Austin Kelly, a guard from Harvard-Westlake, apparently also has de-committed, making his choice for personal reasons back in September, according to the Cornell Basketball Blog. However, according to ESPN Kelly is still committed, since he's listed as one of the six remaining Penn commits:

NAME | POS | HT | WT | SCHOOL | RANK | GRADE | STATUS NOTES
Miles Cartwright | Shooting Guard | 6'3" | 160 | Loyola H.S. (CA ) | Shooting Guard #48 | 90 | Verbal

Dau Jok | Shooting Guard | 6'3" | 170 | Theodore Roosevelt H.S. (IA) | Shooting Guard #172 | 80 | Verbal

Casey James | Point Guard | 6'2" | 170 | Capistrano Valley Christian H.S. (CA)  | Point Guard #150 76 Verbal

Cameron Gunter | Power Forward | 6'8"  | -- | Ridley H.S. (PA ) | Power Forward #224 | 75 | Verbal

Austin Kelly  | Shooting Guard | 6'2" | 170 | Harvard-Westlake School (CA) | Shooting Guard #251 | 74 | Verbal

Steve Rennard | Point Guard | 6'1" | 170 | St. Joseph H.S. (NJ ) | Point Guard #191 | 70 | Verbal

I have no information yet — nor does anyone else to my knowledge — on why Panzer (and possibly Kelly) decommitted. The CBB report simply meant Kelly's decision was unrelated to Panzer's. While I think Penn can deal with the loss of Kelly -- one talented guard among a slew of impressive swingmen on Miller's radar -- the loss of Panzer will hurt badly. He was the best offensive big man that demonstrated a serious interest in Penn, and one of the prizes of the entire class. After the Quakers missed out on 7-footer Ugo Okam, who committed to Harvard, they had just one big man besides Panzer. And Cameron Gunter's defense needed the complementary offense of the talented Panzer, who had rejected scholarship offers from Gonzaga and Colorado. Panzer was the most exciting recruit in my opinion besides Miles Cartwright and maybe Dau Jok. I can't begin to imagine what Glen Miller is going through with an 0-4 team and now a significant hole in his recruiting class.

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.