Today was the first official day that Class of 2010 players could sign their National Letter of Intent to play college basketball at a particular school. The early signing period lasts for one week and will end on November 18th.
Both 2010 Villanova verbal commitments have announced that they will be signing their letters of intent to play for Villanova tonight!
When that happens, both James Bell and Markus Kennedy will be officially part of the Villanova family! Welcome to the fold guys!
Markus Kennedy
James Bell
Kennedy is a 6′9″ power forward who has been described as a skilled passer out of the post with a great scoring touch. Bell, a 6′5″ wing ranked 76th nationally by Rivals, is a rangy athlete that can take it to the hoop as well as knock it down from outside. He’s also a great defender, which is something that Jay Wright requires of all his players.
This is a great follow-up to 2009’s heralded quartet. James Bell looks to step into Reggie Redding’s spot on the roster while Kennedy will provide quality depth in the seemingly-always-think ‘Nova frontcourt. Hopefully both come in next year ready to play and keep Villanova at the forefront of the college basketball scene. It seems that we may have finally gotten to the point where we are reloading, not rebuilding.
From here, it appears that it may be Cory Joseph and/or JayVaughn Pinkston or bust for 2010 recruiting. Both Joseph and Pinkston look to be signing in the spring.
One Entertainment has video with some James Bell highlights highlights. From what I can tell, he is clearly the best player on the floor in these clips, but the athleticism, and the ball handling as well is better than what I had previously read about him. I thought he was more on the raw side, but he had been steadily climbing in the rankings earlier in the year.
Anyways, check this out. James definitely has the goods when it comes to finishing around the rim.
The guys over at VUHoopsrelay a story from Dick ‘Hoops’ Weiss of the NY Daily News on Class of 2010 prospect Jayvaughn Pinkston. According to Weiss, Pinkston unofficially visited Villanova last Thursday. Pinkston, who plays for Bishop Loughlin in Brooklyn, says that the visit went well. He also visited Tennessee last week, and is being recruited by several other Big East schools.
Here’s ESPN’s evaluation of Pinkston courtesy of VUHoops.
“Pinkston is an absolute horse inside the paint. He’s incredibly strong with a tremendous work-ethic, and unmatched toughness and aggressiveness. He’s a very high volume rebounder, who is equally effective in traffic or out of his area. The vast majority of his point production comes by the rim albeit in a number of different ways: He runs diligently in transition; knows how to seal and score on the block; goes by or overpowers defenders on his way to the bucket; and finishes everything through contact. He’s worked very hard to develop his perimeter skills and while his shooting range now extends to about 18 feet and his handle is solid, pulling him away from the basket takes away from what he does best. Despite being somewhat undersized, he’ll have no problems playing the 4 at the next level thanks to his length, athleticism, and physical prowess. Defensively, he’s a good on-the-ball post defender thanks to his low center of gravity and also effective from the weak-side because he’s so active and quick to rotate.”
…Unless he grows, Pinkston will continue to be undersized at power forward, especially in the rugged Big East if he ends up there…I almost disagree with ESPN on the evaluation though, it seems like Pinkston could really reach his ceiling if he developed into a combo-forward a la Sam Young i.e. someone who can stroke it from outside but is equally deadly in the paint and driving to the hoop…
…Anyways, we’ve got Markus Kennedy already in 2010, and many consider us done for this cycle unless Kennedy or James Bell decided to switch…it never hurts to keep as many doors open as possible though, and it speaks volumes about the work that our staff does…
It’s now after the scheduled 1:30 announcement, and since it was reported here last night, as well as here, we are going to go ahead and talk about it ourselves.
Markus Kennedy, a 6′9 250-pound forward has committed to Villanova. He joins SG James Bell in Villanova’s Class of 2010. Kennedy originally started out at St. Patrick’s in New Jersey before transferring to Living Faith Christian Academy, but you could say that the St. Pat’s pipeline remains open for the time being.
Interestingly enough, this may very well close out Villanova’s recruiting efforts for 2010. From all accounts the staff had targeted at least one guard and a forward for this class, and they seemingly have gotten their man at both positions.
It’s a long way until these guys sign the dotted line, so nothing is completely official yet. I’m sure Villanova will keep tabs on players like Justin Jackson in case anything changes, but you have to be excited about landing Kennedy.
He’s not the consensus All-American talent that Mouphtaou Yarou is, but landing a kid that is on the rise like Kennedy just a year after landing Yarou is a credit to Jay Wright and his staff.
With the college basketball season coming to an end, naturally the pace is going to slow down around here. There won’t be as much news daily, and sometimes for days at a time (especially in the summer). But we are going to make a collective effort to make sure that everything Villanova-related is covered on here throughout the spring and the summer.
In the coming weeks, look for the following:
A tribute to each of the four seniors that are graduating.
A focus on Dante Cunningham’s draft status as he works to make an NBA team.
A new addition to the blog’s staff.
In addition to those, we’re primarily going to make sure we start to focus on Villanova’s recruiting efforts for the classes of 2010 and 2011 (remember that Villanova has one commitment already — SG James Bell — for the Class of 2010), as well as begin to give our thoughts on the outlook of next season.
With 4 freshman, a redshirt freshman, and a transfer eligible for playing time next fall, Villanova is looking at a major overhaul. There will still be many familiar faces, but this is an essence a new era of Villanova basketball we are entering. When Randy Foye, Allan Ray and Kyle Lowry left, these past 3 years were viewed as “transition” years by many of us. It turned out to be something much, much better.
So as we say goodbye to 4 great ambassadors of the program (as well as an assistant coach), keep in mind that more good times lie ahead. We may be graduating from ‘Nova in May, but we’ll always have our hearts with this program.
