By JOSH NEWMAN
Special to ZAGSBLOG
PHILADELPHIA – Any lingering doubt that Skal Labissiere is near the top of a deep 2015 big man crop should be fading at this point.
Labissiere, a 6-foot-10 forward out of Evangelical Christian School (TN) and the 10th-ranked player in the class according to Scout.com, hammered that point home on Wednesday evening when he impressed, and maybe even got the better of Diamond Stone during the opening game of the Reebok Breakout Classic in Philadelphia University.
The folks running the Reebok event weren’t messing around when they made the schedule. They pitted Labissiere against Stone, Scout’s No. 1 player in the Class of 2015, and also put Labissiere on a team with 2016 stars Derryck Thornton and Tyus Battle.
“I was really looking forward to playing him,” said Labissiere, who showed off an array of scoring options throughout his 16 minutes of action. “I know how good he is and how good they say he is. It was a good matchup and something I was really looking forward to playing in.”
With a star-studded group of recruits on the Gallagher Center’s Court 1, Kentucky head coach John Calipari headlined a group of high-major coaches watching that included Louisville’s Rick Pitino, Connecticut’s Kevin Ollie, SMU’s Larry Brown, Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan, and Josh Pastner of Memphis.
Labissiere, who is originally from Haiti, said Memphis is showing a lot of love as his recruitment heats up. He also mentioned Kentucky, Georgetown, Tennessee, Ole Miss and Baylor as the schools that are coming at him the hardest.
Labissiere has not cut down his list, nor did he indicate when he might make a decision, but it’s easy to understand why Memphis is going to be a major factor in his recruitment moving forward.
“I’m very familiar with Memphis because I live there,” Labissiere said. “I go on campus a lot. That’s a good program, it’s my second home obviously.”
