LOUISVILLE RECRUITING AHEAD OF THE GAME

January 5, 2008


Louisville head coach Rick Pitino is setting the bar pretty high for the rest of the Big East in recruiting. As any analyst, coach or fan will attest, recruiting is the lifeblood of a program and plays a major role in determining your college basketball odds of success. Pitino, a Hall of Fame coach, has won national championships and been to the Final Four with schools such as Providence, Kentucky and Louisville, that success gets noticed by high school kids.

Relationships are important in recruiting and it looks like Pitino and his staff have developed a very fruitful relationship with Lawrence North High School of Indianapolis (IN), a school that regularly produces top players, including recent NBA 1st round picks Greg Oden and Mike Conley who starred at Ohio State.

Following the Cardinals thrilling three-point win over Kentucky on Sunday, two more Lawrence North HS Players Commit to Louisville (Indianapolis Star)as sophomores Ryan Taylor and Michael Chandler told the UL staff just after the game they want to be part of the future.

Chandler and Taylor join 2010 Louisville verbal commitment Justin Martin and 2009 signee Stephan Van Treese as current Lawrence North players that will be part of the Cardinal future. The Cards have four players signed for 2009 (Van Treese, Peyton Siva, Rakeem Buckles and Mike Marra), three verbal commitments for 2010 (Martin, Jeremy Tyler and Josh Langford) as well as Taylor and Chandler now pledged for 2011. That is a serious head start in recruiting!

other than Pitino's success at the college level, recruits also notice his time spent in the NBA coaching the Knicks and Celtics as a factor in wanting to play for him.

"Just watching Louisville play, I felt like it was a good fit for me, Ryan Taylor told Jody Demling of the Louisville Courier-Journal. "I want to play in the NBA and I felt like the best coach to get me there was Rick Pitino."

The rest of the Big East has some catching up to do on the recruiting trail!