Mike Rosario needed only one visit to pick his next college.
The 6-foot-2 shooting guard from Jersey City committed Sunday morning to Florida coach Billy Donovan after taking his first official visit since getting released from Rutgers Wednesday.
“I’m a Gator. I’m a Gator. I committed this morning probably around 11:30 or 12. I wanted to wait till I got to coach’s house,” an obviously pumped up Rosario said by phone.
“I signed my papers. I signed already.”
Follow Adam Zagoria on Twitter.
bigpapijugg / April 18, 2010
zag- i seen your tweet about “more coming”. i was wondering if that had anything to do with the fact that there is going to be a big announcement for UK or are you saying more on rosario later. im trying to figure out what the UK news is and its killing me
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Adam Zagoria / April 18, 2010
I was saying I planned to update the Rosario story with more quotes, which I did.
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HallBall / April 18, 2010
Florida has one hell of a shooter coming to G-Ville, do Jersey proud Mike…
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rclegacy / April 18, 2010
So much for RU looking like Fordham all over again.
Good luck Mike.
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Adam Zagoria / April 19, 2010
They may well end up looking like Fordham record-wise. Any weren’t you the guy saying USC and these schools had tampered?
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UofA BJ / April 19, 2010
If shooting 37% from the field makes you a great shooter, only a seton hall fan would say something that dumb.
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rurahrah / April 19, 2010
Gator or a croc? Only time will tell.
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rclegacy / April 19, 2010
Funny Adam, funny. I doubt RU would have a record like Fordham’s playing a Fordham-like MAAC schedule.
I don’t know what has changed you from your Herald News days, but you’ve been awfully condescending to the many that disagreed with your hatchet job on this story from the start. Was I the guy that said USC and others were tampering? Sure, we’re all so stupid to forget that it was Gannett News with the report about tampering allegations. Did you not follow this story through? I’ll help you out. RU decided not to pursue the USC tampering, not because of no evidence, but because it wasn’t worth it to fight it out and pay all the legal fees and risk alienating St. Ant’s over Mike Rosario. Period.
Maybe you’ll get around to following-up on why USC and Rosario’s handlers only denied direct contact but, like you, skirted the obvious possibilities of secondary and tertiary contacts. For all we know since you haven’t asked the right questions of your contacts, Rosario’s conditional release conditions restricted USC and Kansas due to substantial tampering evidence at those schools, but not enough at Florida to bother. Who knows? A lot of “unofficial” stuff went on behind the scenes here. But that’s your job to dig it out.
Face it, you air-balled the RU is looking like Fordam all over again story angle.
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UofA BJ / April 19, 2010
swish
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Adam Zagoria / April 20, 2010
RCLegacy,
Everything you are saying feeds my initial position.
Rosario’s release did not restrict him from going to USC or Kansas, only within the Big East or to teams on next year’s schedule. From the beginning I said there was “not a shred” of evidence that that those schools had tampered, and you said Rutgers “made public” the evidence. No one has seen it yet.
If Rutgers had gone ahead and restricted Mike’s options, they would have done exactly what Fordham did with Jio, which everyone agreed was wrong.
To their credit (perhaps for fear of alienating Coach Hurley), Rutgers did not go in that direction.
Jio may well have ended up at a local Big East school had he been given the option. Instead, he went out West.
Mike apparently decided on UF right away.
As for the Herald News, I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.
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blasphemy / April 20, 2010
Oh no he didn’t! Yes, yes he just did. BOOM!
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RockChalkWoody / April 20, 2010
rclegacy, care to share any of this alleged “evidence” that Kansas was involved in tampering or are you just going to keep making unfounded accusations?
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rclegacy / April 21, 2010
I’ve been flagged?
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rclegacy / April 22, 2010
Earth to Adam (Part 1):
It was the Hoops Haven himself with some meat on the report about the tampering allegations:
“ Jerry Carino Says:
April 11th, 2010 at 1:56 am Regarding the tampering charge, a very good source told us his detailed version of the alleged tampering, which we did not print because it is explosive and we could not immediately verify it.”
“Tampering charges, the sources said, would be filed after the new coach is in place.”
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20104090368
Sounds like there are plenty of shreds Adam. I don’t why you keep denying that it’s out there irrespective of whether RU decided that the erratic and moody Rosario with his 37% FG wasn’t worth burning other recruiting bridges. Call Jerry Carino and follow-up. Carino’s local and has been a lot more plugged into this story then you have been from your perch at SNY.
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rclegacy / April 22, 2010
Earth to Adam (Part 2):
2) Gannett reported that RU’s conditional release was on a case-by-case basis.
http://blogs.mycentraljersey.com/hoopshaven/2010/04/14/rosario-gets-conditional-transfer-release-from-ru/
Funny how the most obvious schools to be involved in tampering USC (Fontan) and Kansas (Taylor) fell off the transfer map pretty quickly. (Personally I doubt KU reached out to Rosario, he’s not very close to that elite level, but it’s easy to see Rosario/Fontan having Taylor make some informal inquiries.)
So maybe you can stop spinning now Adam, and also get around to following-up on why USC and Rosario’s handlers only denied direct contact, and, like you, skirted the obvious possibilities of secondary and tertiary contacts. But if you can’t connect those dots, and want to keep deluding yourself that RU was just like Fordham all over again, then at least try to dig up some reports about Fordham alleging tampering with Fontan.
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rclegacy / April 22, 2010
P.S. I never wrote that RU made the evidence public—I noted that RU went public with allegations of tampering. I know I’m not an AAU circuit source for you Adam, but please don’t misquote little ol’ me.
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rurahrah / April 22, 2010
Star-Ledger posted the following just minutes ago:
Gil Biruta will honor his basketball letter of intent to Rutgers after meeting with athletic director Tim Pernetti this morning, according to ScarletReport.com.
My gut says more good news is coming, SOON!
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