Boost Mobile: Harris Cuts List, Plans In-homes

NEW YORK — Tobias Harris and his family have cut his list of colleges somewhat and will host nearly a dozen in-home visits beginning Sept. 9.

During a video interview with SNY.tv that will air in the coming days, Torrel Harris said the family will have in-home visits with the following schools: Kentucky, Syracuse, St. John’s, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Maryland, Louisville, Georgia Tech and UConn.

“I don’t have any favorites,” Tobias said.

After that they will cut the list to five and take official visits.

“Maybe [late September] we’ll cut it down it to like five schools and take the official visits,” Tobias added.

Harris, a 6-foot-8 combo forward from Dix Hills (N.Y.) Half Hollow Hills West, had a terrific summer on the recruiting circuit and is ranked No. 5 in the Class of 2010 by Rivals.

“We are finalizing some home visits and we’ll really have strong interviews with these coaches to see how his style of play fits into their game style of play,” Torrel said Thursday in Manhattan at a practice for Friday’s Boost Mobile Elite 24 event.

“We’re trying to watch those situations where coaches will allow him to show his versatility.”

Several schools tried to get involved with Harris after he cut his list to 12 last April, but Torrel said UCLA, Florida, Texas and Memphis simply didn’t make the final cut. Virginia and Rutgers, which were on the initial list, are also out.

“It comes down to we feel comfortable with the schools we already have that’s put in the two years,” Torrel said. “We don’t see how it could fit to add UCLA and Memphis and Florida to our list.

“Now people say, ‘Well, why did you add Kentucky? Cal [John Calipari] made an interesting point. He said, ‘I just got here. I’m new at this and then he recruited Tobias at Memphis and we really weren’t interested in Memphis at the time.

“So he said, ‘I’m at Kentucky. Can you give me a shot here?’

“So we said, we’ll take an unofficial [on the way to the Nike Global Challenge in Portland, Ore.]. If we like it we’ll consider it. We took a visit to Kentucky. We liked it. I thought it was a great situation so we added them on the list. That’s why they got added. You can’t fault a coach if he got a new position.”

Added Tobias: “It was a good visit. I liked the program. I liked the style of play. And Coach Calipari’s a good coach also.”

Memphis coach Josh Pastner also started on the job this year, but Torrel said Memphis didn’t make the cut.

“Josh has a good relationship with us because Josh coached Channing [Frye, Tobias’ cousin] at Arizona,” he said. “But it just came that if I didn’t get to go and do an unofficial, it’s hard to add them on the list.”

(Photo courtesy Kelly Kline/Nike)