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Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
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Saturday / November 23.

Fresh off an in-home visit last week with St. John’s head coach Norm Roberts, Lance Stephenson is expected to visit St. John’s Thursday for the 2008 Red Storm Tip-Off, according to sources close to the situation. It is not an official visit.

The event will run from 5:45-8 at Taffner Field House and will serve as St. John’s Midnight Madness event. It is open to students and the media, but not the general public. There will be a free student BBQ and the men’s and women’s teams will be introduced. Both Roberts and women’s coach Kim Barnes-Arrico will speak to the fans, and both teams will then scrimmage.

Other recruits will also attend, as well as members of the current recruiting class, including South Kent standout Omari Lawrence.

Jamel Jackson, a 6-foot-3, 195-pound shooting guard who committed to Seton Hall from Technical Career Institutes in Manhattan, is not enrolled at Seton Hall for “academic reasons” and remains “wide open” on his college choice, according to TCI coach Pernell Hosier.

“It’s for academic reasons,” Hosier said Thursday by phone. “There are grades that he obtained over the summer session that Seton Hall doesn’t accept, a C- and a D, that leave him two credits short to be eligible.”

Hosier said Jackson was back at TCI and will spend this year there, and then could pick another school if he chooses.

Durand Scott will take his first official visit this weekend when he goes to Pitt.

“Yes, my first official,” Scott, a senior guard at Manhattan Rice, said in a text message.

Scott previously said he has a top eight schools of UCLA, Miami, UConn, Tennessee, Xavier, Pittsburgh, Memphis and Virginia

“I didn’t cut it down yet, pretty soon,” the 6-4, 180-pound Scott said.

Indiana head coach Tom Crean and assistant Roshown McLeod were the latest college coaches to come through Jersey City Wednesday night to court St. Anthony senior Dominic Cheek.

Crean and McLeod met with the 6-foot-5 Cheek, his uncle, Omari Knight, and St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley at Hurley’s home.

Cheek and his uncle had previously met with coaches from Seton Hall, Memphis and Kansas.

“It was a good visit, maybe a little bit longer than we would’ve liked,” joked Hurley of the two-hour visit. “Coach Crean was fired up. We talked about where Indiana is at this time, what sanctions might be imposed and the roster, which is probably way short of players compared to other schools.

For the first time since re-injuring his surgically-repaired left knee during the Fresno State game, Rutgers RB Kordell Young spoke to the media Wednesday.

Young said he initially hurt his knee early in the first game.

“It happened during the first quarter,” Young said.

Young went on to carry 26 times for 94 yards in the 24-7 loss to Fresno State. He said the new injury is not related to the season-ending tear in his left knee he suffered early last season.

“It has nothing to do with the surgery,” he said.

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