Verdel Jones snubs Tubby for Crean

Crean - 1
Tubby - 0

I'm not too concerned about losing Jones. There has been something fishy about this entire recruiting process with Jones. If you have paid attention to this blog at all you'll know I've been hesitant about getting excited about him. Minnesota has always been his fall back school, but I don't want us to be anybody's fall back anymore.

Initially Tennessee was the school he wanted to attend but there was never an actual offer, then Kentucky was his hot school but again they never stuck with an offer for him, recently Arizona was a late school to offer but PT wasn't going to be there for him. Finally Indiana lost their entire team, hired Tom Crean and was the perfect scenario for Jones. It was a big time program offering immediate playing time.

All indications (from message boards/recruiting sights) was that Jones was all but a sure thing to sign with Minnesota. His family was contacting local media outlets to make a trip to Champaign and cover his "highly anticipated" press conference. Then Jones announced he was attending Indiana. I'm not offended and don't care that much but all along his recruitment reeked of thinking more highly of himself than anybody else did. Tubby was in his corner all along but that wasn't enough.

I wish him the best at Indiana and am relieved he won't be eating up a scholarship that we can better utilize next season. Were our recruiting class not already five deep I may have felt differently about this process but at this point we don't necessarily need him. He is not exactly a 5-star stud, he is a 3-star PG who is one of the best remaining. It is my belief that we can land someone at least of his caliber in the class of 2009.

Indiana top notch blog - Inside the Hall has a brief recap of Jones
Paging Jim Shikenjanski gives his thoughts
Down With Goldy wanted Verdell but I don't think he is standing on a ledge anywhere

With that said lets take a look at some 2009 PGs on the radar for Minnesota...

1. Johnnie Lacy - Milwaukee - 4-star
2. Mfon Udofia - Stone Mountain, GA - 4-star
3. Chris Colvin - Chicago - 4-star
   
4. Nick Russell - Arlington, TX - 3-star

These are all players with varying degrees of interest on the part of both parties, but they are names that have popped up. Now that Jones is clearly out of the picture I would think that a 2009 PG would be more open to checking us out.