Arizona struck gold again with the Drew Gooden Soldiers AAU program by landing point guard Josiah Turner Sunday morning.
The 6-foot-3, 175-pound Turner is the No. 2 point guard in the Class of 2011 and is the AAU teammate of Findlay Prep guard Nick Johnson, who earlier committed to the Wildcats.
“I had a lot of fun here,” Turner told the Arizona Daily Star Sunday. “I bonded with everybody. I liked the teammates, the coaches and I got to meet the AD.”
Turner had also visited UCLA and Louisville and had a visit slated for Kansas next month.
I just wanted to be part of the UA tradition,” Turner told the Daily Star. “I like all the fans here. Everything was crazy.”
He joins Nick Johnson and 6-9 Oak Hill Academy wing Sidiki Johnson in Arizona’s 2011 recruiting haul and probably means that Oak Hill point guard Quinn Cook ends up elsewhere.
The Daily Star reported that the Wildcats are two over their allotment of 12 scholarships for next season, yet Arizona is also involved with Dallas wing LeBryan Nash, who visits Sept. 24.
“[He’s a] great player,” Nash said by text of Turner.
THOMPSON TO OHIO STATE
Sam Thompson, a 6-7 senior wing from Chicago Whitney Young, verbally committed to Ohio State.
“I love the staff and love the school,” Thompson, the No. 4 small forward in the Class of 2011, told Alex Kline of The Recruit Scoop. “Coach Matta’s forwards have excelled in the past and I’m looking forward to help bring a national championship to Columbus!”
Thompson reportedly chose Ohio State over Florida and Oregon State. He averaged about 10 points in 19 games last season but ChicagoBreakingSports.com reported that he suffered an ankle injury early in the season.
Young joins guard Shannon Scott of Georgia and forward LaQuinton Ross of Mississippi in Thad Matta’s 2011 class.
FREE THROWS
More commitments per Alex Kline: Jabril Trawick, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Abington Friends High School in Pennsylvania, chose Georgetown over Florida State. “The coaching staff and the group of players that I will be playing with is a big reason why I chose Georgetown,” Trawick told Kline. “The time we will get on television is awesome and I really like the Verizon Center. There are a lot of connections there, it’s like a pipeline.” He added: “[Current Hoyas] Austin [Freeman] and Chris [Wright] are leaving and I’m going to fill in.”…Darius Nelson, a SF from California has committed to UTEP…Ramon Eaton, a SF from California has verballed to Pepperdine, according to their AAU Coach at Team Odom…Shonn Miller ’11, a 6-6 forward from Ohio, has committed to Cornell…Kenyatta Smith, a 6-8 center from Flintridge Prep (Calif.), committed to Harvard…Tim Dixon, a 6-10, 215-pound center from Oldsmar, Fla., committed to Georgia during his official visit this past weekend, according to multiple reports…Chier Ajou, a 7-1 center from Sudan, committed to New Mexico…Rickey Tarrant, a 6-foot point guard from Birmingham Pleasant Grove, committed to Tulane…Julian DeBose, a 6-4 point guard from Washington, D.C. St. John, verballed to Rice….6-9 JUCO big man Robert Goff chose Oklahoma, according to OUHoops.com.
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JessieWildcat / September 19, 2010
AZ,
Good Stuff on Turner.
Your site was talking about Turner to Arizona ,for about two weeks.
The Nash thing seems interesting.
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PaulSmenis / September 19, 2010
Turner commits to UA and KU fans disappear like a fart in the wind.
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BostonCat / September 20, 2010
kind of like Zona fans disappearing after whiffing on selby, lamb, jones, jack, vargas, etc.
congrats on your first 5 star player in 4 years.
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UAWildcat / September 20, 2010
Boston kind of hard to recruit players of any level when a program has two different interim coaches in back to back years. Much like it was hard for Kentucky with Gilliespie. All that matters is that Miller and his staff are working hard to bring Arizona back to a program that frequently makes long runs in the NCAA’s.
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PaulSmenis / September 20, 2010
Kentucky fan coming to the defense of Kansas fan. How precious.
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BostonCat / September 20, 2010
actually recruiting was ok with gillispie. closed the deal on patterson. brought in miller and liggins. probably would have had will barton. the problem is he was psycho and no one wanted to play for him.
i just dont think Zona fans should go running their mouth when it comes to recruiting after landing a top 50 in state player and his best friend/team mate who just happens to be a top 10-15 player.
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davidpk19 / September 20, 2010
Hey BostonCat;
We will talk after your team is put on probation or gets the death penalty. That is what Calimari is all about, so be ready to get it when it comes. Enjoy the short enjoyment of his cheating days.
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BostonCat / September 20, 2010
keep hoping…its all you can do. i dont blame you really.
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mikemiller13 / September 20, 2010
good pick up for arizona. i don’t think ku fans are running from anything. the program doesn’t fall off.
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UAWildcat / September 20, 2010
Miller and Liggins are not players I would be talking up. While last years freshman for Arizona were not highly rated one of them did make the freshman all american list. Miller knows talent and brings in talented players all coaches miss out on player even Calipari.
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BostonCat / September 20, 2010
if you arent going to talk up miller and liggins, then dont talk up nick johnson who is ranked comparably to where miller/liggins were.
how you can conclude miller “knows” anything based off 1 year where he went 16-15 with the talent you claim he found is beyond me.
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UAWildcat / September 20, 2010
Let’s see what Jonhson does next here and if he under performs then we can compare him no Miller and Liggins. Miller and Liggins were probably over rated out of high school. My point with Miller knowing talent comes from what he was able to do at Xavier and D. Williams being on the freshman All-American Team as a lesser rated player coming out of high school. I believe the four others on the team were all 5 star kids coming out of high school and D. Will was at the three star level.
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norcal1911 / September 20, 2010
Zona manages to sign an okay recruit, his highly-ranked friend decides to stay out West and take a chance on the Wildcats too. Congratulations. But do us all a favor, Wildcat fans – wait until you become relevant again before starting up with the blow hard routine.
As much as you love to hate on KU, Bill Self continues to win the Big 12, has an NCAA championship ring and continues to sign top recruits.
And is it the best that you can do to hope that other teams are cheating and get caught by the NCAA? Misery loves company, right?
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UAWildcat / September 20, 2010
Don’t throw all UA fans in the same basket as Jesse and like minded UA fans. Most of are level headed and respect what other programs. All fan base’s have good fans and idiots. My point is Miller and his staff are returning Arizona to that level of being conference champs and making long NCAA runs. I watched a lot of games in Vegas this summer and Johnson is more than “okay” and to say Turner committed to Arizona just because of N. Johnson’s commitment sounds like sour grapes.
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PaulSmenis / September 20, 2010
You’re absolutely right Norcal, it happens all the time in recruiting. High school and/or AAU teammates go to college as “package deals”. Miller probably didn’t even try that hard for Turner, he probably figured Turner was gift wrapped since he received a commitment from Nick Johnson a month ago.
According to you, (and I hold you in the absolute highest regard after the brilliance of your last post) a school has to be relevant in your eyes in order for their fans to be blow-hards? I guess that is your excuse for being a blow-hard, huh?
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UAWildcat / September 20, 2010
Here you go norcal read this and then try and say it was all because of Nick Johnson.
http://azstarnet.com/sports/blogs/pascoe/article_6a92cab6-c4ea-11df-af0c-001cc4c002e0.html
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JessieWildcat / September 20, 2010
AZ,
Good Stuff from NYC – MoMO Jones.
MoMo is one outstanding person.
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What is bigger than Turner commit is thhat Kansas got CUT- gangster style.
Kansas does not get a visit.
Turne is just another ,of a long list of recruits, saying NO – to Gangster U.
Brown- out
Rivers- Will he make the visit?
Note:
Jessie was well aware of what was coming, again.
http://dynamic.azstarnet.com/comments/viewcomments.php?id=/sports/blogs/pascoe/article_6a92cab6-c4ea-11df-af0c-001cc4c002e0.html&h=Jones helped land Turner
LMAO…
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beardown3232 / September 20, 2010
Its cool to see that Momo cares more about Arizona signing big recruits than his own playing time. And you can never really tell what kind of a personality an individual has until you get to know them but if Josiah Turner is anything like his mother describes him as, he sounds like a guy that cares more about the team he plays for than himself.
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WorldWildcat / September 20, 2010
JessieWildcat, please ease up on the Jayhawk rhetoric. I’m very happy that our coach got his first 5 star recruit & seems to be laying a foundation, but it’s foolish to think that KU isn’t loaded and won’t get any recruits . They already have a couple of stud PGs in Selby & Johnson and from what I’ve read it looks like they’re going to get Ben McLemore from Oak Hill Academy. Plus, we play them in Vegas in November and we know that will be a difficult game. Could you please act like we’ve been here before?
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norcal1911 / September 21, 2010
@ Smenis – My point is that one 5-star recruit does not make a return to excellence. As a Zona fan, you have every right to be happy that Miller landed him, but to read some of the comments from your fellow wildcats on here, you’d think the team has been instantly returned to elite status. Sure, you all can claim whatever you’d like about how good Nick Johnson will be (maybe he will be) and what a stud Turner will be (he probably will), but let them at least scrimmage on campus a bit before using this as a basis to claim how good you all will be. Like WorldWidcat says, act like you’ve been there before. This doesn’t look good on you.
@ UAWildcat – I hear you… or I’m trying to, but really… An article from a local paper’s UA sports beat writer to prove Turner wasn’t stoked because a close friend of his went there? C’mon, man.
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UAWildcat / September 21, 2010
I understand it was a Tucson article but Mrs. Ward’s quotes about MoMo would be the same if they were in the Lawerence paper or New York Times. It was just an easy example that it was not just Nick Johnson. Although I’m sure Johnson did his best to sway Turner much like he is doing with B. Ashley.
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PaulSmenis / September 21, 2010
norcal, I’m actually not a Wildcat fan. I just despise the arrogance of some of the KU and UK fans on this site. So please, show me where on this thread where Arizona fans are acting like “blow-hards”….and please don’t point to Jessie, b/c everyone here knows there are multiple screws loose there and from what I read every Arizona fan despises him.
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JonHuskyMS / September 21, 2010
I personally think Jessie is great for the comment boards on this site. Stirs up the pot a bit and takes away from the constant bickering.
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norcal1911 / September 21, 2010
@ UAWildcat – I take your point. I actually think Arizona is a great school and offers recruits (particularly those from here in the West) a great option. It will be interesting to see how Miller re-kindles the program. I just take objection to those who would automatically take something like the Turner commitment as reason to call out a program like KU.
@ Smenis – You should have stated your qualification about Jessie in your first response to my post. I haven’t had the occasion to know which Wildcat fans to take seriously and which to dismiss as crackpots. So, your challenge to me is tantamount to saying: “I dare you to identify the UA blow-hard… oh, but ignore the UA blow-hard.”
To your previous point, however, I’d agree with other posters and say that KU fans don’t have anything to run from. Our team continues to dominate one of the best conferences in the nation, routinely draw top recruits, and has recently celebrated winning a national title. I think the great majority of us appreciate parity of talent among teams since we know we’ll get players, but we’ll take objection when you aim to call us out on general principal.
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UAWildcat / September 21, 2010
norcal- I don’t understand that either but it’s not just UA fans every school has a few tools for fans. For me, I’m more than a fan of the UA I like a lot of programs, coaches and players at all levels of college basketball.
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PaulSmenis / September 22, 2010
norcal, when you say “do us all a favor, Wildcat fans – wait until you become relevant again before starting up with the blow hard routine”, it denotes you mean plural, or more than one…yet you only identify Jessie. And like I said, most if not all Arizona fans disavow Jessie and appear to can’t stand him either, so to lump all of them in with him kind of makes you the blow-hard, no?
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