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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.
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Recruiting

By JACOB POLACHECK & ADAM ZAGORIA

Christian David, the 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Vermont Academy, committed to Butler on Saturday night, giving coach Chris Holtmann a huge building block heading forward.

Ranked the No. 23 shooting guard in the Class of 2017 by 247Sports.com, he also considered Pitt and Creighton.

“Christian has a high upside because of his versatility on both ends of the floor,” Vermont Academy coach Alex Popp said. “He is an athletic guard who is very skilled. He has great basketball IQ. Above all, he is a winner. He played on the Vermont Academy team that won NEPSAC AA last year.”

David announced his pick on Twitter. He becomes the second Vermont Academy senior this week to pick a school, after 6-7 power forward Marcus Santos-Silva committed to VCU on Wednesday.

He is Butler’s fourth commit, following point guard Jerald Butler, shooting guard Cooper Neese and power forward Kyle Young.

Oklahoma State

NEWARK — Brad Underwood knows that Kansas has been the gold standard in the Big 12 Conference for more than a decade now, but the new Oklahoma State coach is on a mission to restore the Cowboys to glory.

Bill Self and the Jayhawks have earned at least a share of the Big 12 title for 12 straight years, but Underwood says the Cowboys should consistently challenge them for league supremacy.

“Absolutely, it should happen, it should happen,” he told me on Friday at the Brayden Carr Foundation Coaches Clinic at Prudential Center. “We have very passionate, educated fans and when you have Mr. [Henry] Iba, you have Eddie Sutton and you have an arena [Gallagher-Iba] which to this day is the loudest arena I’ve ever been in in my life as a player and as a coach, we’ll get back to that.

“And we do that then we become a relevant name again and that’s something that’s not just our goal, but I think it’s the place we belong.”

Recruiting

NEW YORK — Cole Anthony has definitely noticed a Who’s Who of big-time college basketball programs coming through the Archbishop Molloy gym in recent weeks.

There was Louisville head coach Rick Pitino and Florida coach Mike White on Thursday, along with assistants from UConn, Indiana and Miami.

Maryland’s Mark Turgeon was in on Tuesday.

And assistants from Duke and Kansas have also been in recently.

“It’s a lot different than last year,” Anthony told me Thursday. “I mean, going from open gyms having no coaches to having a lot of coaches on the East Coast coming out here. Honestly, it’s a blessing. We all worked for it. Me, Khalid [Moore], Moses [Brown], everybody in here, we all worked for it and it’s just an honor.”

Knicks

Derrick Rose is facing an upcoming civil trial related to an alleged gang rape, but Knicks President Phil Jackson says the case “isn’t keeping [Rose] up at night.”

“We’re not going to really talk about that, we’re just going to let the process work itself out,” Jackson said Friday at the Knicks training facility. “We’re not concerned.

“We understand this is a serious subject we’re talking about but this has to be done outside of our control. It’s something we can’t control so Derrick has expressed that he’s not concerned about it. I mean, he’s quite aware of it but it’s not keeping him up at night so we’re going to leave it at that.”

The trial is slated to being Oct. 4 in Los Angeles, the same day the Knicks open the preseason in Houston. It remains unclear if Rose will miss any portion of the preseason because of the trial. The Knicks will have their media day on Monday and are set to begin training camp on Wednesday at West Point.

Recruiting

NEW YORK — Louisville coach Rick Pitino and assistant Kenny Johnson came to the Archbishop Molloy open gym on Thursday primarly to watch 7-footer Moses Brown, but left by offering a scholarship to his teammate Khalid Moore.

The offer was first reported by Andrew Slater of 247Sports.com, and confirmed by Moore.

Moore, a 6-foot-7 wing who runs with the NY Rens, was one of the breakout 16U players this summer at the Peach Jam and is coming into his own entering his junior season.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s part of a “Big Three” at Molloy that includes Brown and Class of 2019 point guard Cole Anthony, the son of former NBA point guard Greg Anthony.

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