Four days after landing a commitment from Kai Mitchell for 2016, Iona on Thursday picked up a commitment from 6-foot-2, 175-pound Spring Valley (N.Y.) combo guard Rickey McGill for 2015.
Mitchell and McGill are best friends and Spring Valley teammates.
“What made me pick Iona was that I wanted to stay close to home,” McGill told SNY.tv. “I love the coaching staff. When I get to Iona, they are going to be hard on me to be successful, not only as a basketball player but as a person in life.”
As for his connection to Mitchell, McGill said, “Me and him have been talking about going to the same college together since we were in middle school.”
McGill first committed to Manhattan at the beginning of his junior season, but then re-opened his recruitment after the Steve Masiello situation in which the coach first left Manhattan for South Florida and then was found not to have received his degree from Kentucky. (Masiello has since returned as the Manhattan coach.)
“He was committed to Manhattan and he decommitted when the whole Masiello/South Florida connection,” AAU coach Andy Borman told SNY.tv. “At that point, Manhattan kind of backed off of him and since then Iona is the school that has recruited him the hardest and the most consistently.
“He was a kid that always wanted to stay close to home. I think it just made the most sense.”
Borman said it came down to Iona and Drexel.
“He really likes the fact that Iona played up-tempo and I think he really liked the honesty of the coaching staff, and he wanted to stay close to home,” he said.
As for what Iona is getting, “Rickey McGill is a tough, competitive combo guard.”
