Recruiting!

With the book closed on the 2006-2007 season and Midnight Madness still 4+ months away, the only thing for college basketball junkies to focus on is recruiting. With the Terps having signed a combined 10 players in the '06 and '07 classes, space and scholarships are limirted for the next two seasons. The team will have as many as three scholarships available for use on recruits in the '08 senior class, with at least two available for the high school class of '09.

It's still somewhat early with the summer AAU season just heating up, but at least for 2008 prospects, several Terp targets have emerged to the forefront.

Brian Walsh (SG, Moon HS) - Walsh is a traditional shooting guard whose main skill is that he can score and shoot from deep. While the Terps have some guard depth over the next few years with sophs Greivis Vasquez and Eric Hayes, as well as incoming freshmen Cliff Tucker and Adrian Bowie, the one thing lacking from a potentially excellent backcort is a player who can shoot it from deep consistently. Eric Hayes showed glimpses of that ability, shooting at an excellent percentage last year, but he did not show a great ability to create his own shots from deep nor an assertiveness to shoot except when open. These defeciencies can be corrected, but it's obvious why the Gary Williams would want his next guard recruit to be able to stroke it from deep, even though the Maryland offense traditionally does not revolve around the 3-ball at all.

Anyway, back to Walsh. The Western Pennsylvania player has a ton of scholarship offers from major programs (West Virginia, St. Joseph's, Pitt, Penn State, Memphis, and Clemson among others), but he seems to be favoring the Terps with Xavier and perhaps St. Joseph's also in contention.

Quintrell Thomas (PF, Saint Patrick's HS) - The story on Thomas is that he's a banger. He's only 6-7 or 6-8 so he might be a little undersized at the four, but any questions about that should be silenced by his desire to play near the basket.

From that angle, he seems like a good fit for the Terps, similar to '07 recruit Braxton Dupree. The possibility of Thomas and Dupree teaming up in thr frountcourt is enticing because of the willingness both have shown to play with their back to the basket rather than playing facing the basket like most of the recent Terps who played the 4 and 5 (Garrison, Ibekwe, Gist). These two could, in principle at least,. complement raw atheltic big men like Jerome Burney and '07 recruit Shane Walker as well as '07 recruit Dino Gregory, who is not the prototypical banger that Thomas and Dupree are.

The top three for Thomas are Rutgers, Marquette and Maryland, and Thomas seems certain that his choice will come from among those three. He has just recently emerged nationally, so there are a lot of new suitors although he already holds a number of scholarhip offers including ones from Pitt, Seton Hall, Miami, and Saint John's. But the Terps were among the first to heavily recruit Thomas, so that would seem to give them as good a chance as any. Thomas plays for Team New Jersey Elite on the AAU circuit.

Sean Mosley (SG, Saint Frances HS) - The Terps have been heavily recruiting local players over the past few seasons, but Mosley is the first local name to appear on this list. He's a good one though, having been a standout for Saint Frances in Baltimore dating back to his freshman season when he made the Baltimore Sun All-Metro first team and was named BCL Tournament MVP.

Although he doesn't stand out for any one skill, he is impressive because he doesn't have any glaring weaknesses. He's big and athletic, can shoot it from deep and midrange and is tremendous at getting to the hoop. He recently had a very strong performance at the Boo Williams AAU tournament in April, earning all-Tournament honors.

Things don't look as great here for the Terps as they do for the first two. There are questions about possible grade/qualifying issues (though that is definately speculation), and he plays for the Team Melo AAU team - not exactly the Terps best friend on the AAU circuit. Mosley's shoices at this point include Syracuse, Maryland, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Virginia and Florida State. It also seems that Mosley is not likely to make a decision in the near future, whereas Brian Walsh could decide within the next month. Given all of that, the Terps seem to be focusing somewha on Walsh as the priority recruit. If Walsh chooses the Terps soon, there most likely would not be room for Mosley.

Frank Ben-Eze (C, Bishop O'Connell HS) - Ben-Eze - who plays for the DC Blue Devils AAU team - is another big man prospect for the Terps. The Nigerian import plays in the ultra-competitive WCAC and has held his own despite being relatively new to the game. While his heritage and the fact that he is relatively inexperienced might draw comparisons to former Terp standout center Obinna Ekezie, Ben-Eze is much more slender and not as powerful as Ekezie.

Ben-Eze is in the mold of many other raw, African-born players, in that his skills are extremely raw, as is his feel for the game, but his physical gifts, noticeably his athleticism, are what gets him noticed by college coaches. He has a long way to go in improving his skills, but the old saying is that you can't teach height, and Ben-Eze has plenty of that. With the Terps already bringing in a raw foreign born player in '07 in Shane Walker, as well as Jerome Burney the year before, Ben-Eze might not be high on the Terps' list, especially after a poor game in January in front of Gary Williams and Chuck Driesell. Still, with few frontcourt recruits on the radar right now, Ben-Eze could get a long look in the right situation. Ben-Eze lists Maryland, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, and Marquette among those who have offered him a scholarship.

Roscoe Davis (PF, Wise HS) - Another local big man on the Terps' radar, Davis is a member of the DC Assault AAU program. He's somewhere between Thomas and Ben-Eze in that he possesses a mixture of skill and athleticism whereas Thomas is short on athleticism but has plenty of skill and toughness, whereas Ben-Eze is highly sought after mainly because of his athleticism rather than his skills at this time.

Davis has possible grade issues and has attended several different high schools, neither of which will make him more likely to end up a Terp. He also may spend a year at a prep school and therefore become a class of '09 recruit. Pitt, Clemson, Miami, Maryland, Syracuse, and Stanford are among the many schools linked to Davis, with Pitt perhaps the most likely of that group to land Davis, although he has not indicated that he is leaning towards any particular school.

There will almost certainly be more prospects to emerge on the radar this summer unless the Terps get two early committments, perhaps from Walsh and Thomas. The Terps have also been linked to Terrence Jennings (C, Mount Zion Christian Academy), Ashton Gibbs (SG, Seton Hall Prep), Mike Davis (C, South Kent Prep/Team STAT) and Laron Dendy (PF, Greer HS). However, for now, this is the group that Terps fans should get to know a little better.