Great piece on the Oden/Conley recruitment....<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=2>Rapp Around: Oden, Conley at a crossroads <HR width="100%" noShade SIZE=1></TD></TR><TR><TD>Jeff Rapp
BuckeyeSports.com Senior Writer </TD><TD noWrap align=right>
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Sensing that the Greg Oden and Mike Conley decision was near -- and hearing from good sources that they were leaning heavily on Ohio State -- I couldn't resist trekking to Richmond, Ind., June 23, for the final rendition of the Indiana all-star series pitting the state's top seniors and juniors.
<!--Start Image--><SCRIPT language=Javascript>document.write(insertImage('/IMAGES/PROSPECT/PHOTO/MIKECONLEY7_22200.JPG', '', 0, 267, 200, 1, 'Mike Conley Jr. could be Ohio State\'s point guard of the future, and help the Buckeyes to the nation\'s top hoops recruiting class.', 'Rivals.com', 1119967605000, '', 1014, 'Align=Left'));</SCRIPT><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=202></TD><TD width=6 rowSpan=4>
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</TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>Mike Conley Jr. could be Ohio State's point guard of the future, and help the Buckeyes to the nation's top hoops recruiting class.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- End Image-->After all, this column is not only named "Rapp Around" because of the fun play on words but also because I pride myself in actually trying to get out and see what I'm writing about. I had seen the 7-0 Oden and 6-1 Conley play together in a huge AAU gathering, which they won, a couple months back in Fort Wayne, Ind., and they certainly lived up to their dual billing as the top prospect in the nation (Oden) and a top-40 player among the best point guards in his class (Conley).
However, I was absolutely dazzled at the camaraderie of the Indianapolis Lawrence North standouts in what turned out to be a competitive and highly entertaining exhibition game. The two have so much basketball IQ and so many shared brain waves that it's almost unfair when they are on the court together -- even against older and more experienced players such as local boy Dominic James and Luke Zeller, the state's reigning "Mr. Basketball."
Behind a perfect floor game from Conley (10 assists, no turnovers) and a surprising surge of offense (24 points, 4 for 8 on three-pointers) and the usual dominance inside by Oden (17 points, six rebounds and four blocks), the juniors pulled away for an impressive 109-96 win at the Tiernan Center, a palatial high school gymnasium if ever there was one.
Afterward, I asked both players if they still had Ohio State in the middle of their radar screen and if a decision indeed was imminent.
"Now that the (NBA) ruling and stuff came out, we're trying to make a date closer to the end of June," Conley told me. "We're trying to get it over with because we're both sick and tired of phone calls from every college and stuff. It'd be better to just have that monkey off our back and be able to play."
Another reporter then made sure to ask if he was down to Ohio State and Wake Forest, his two leaders all along and the only schools both players visited officially.
"Those are the only two," he assured.
Oden, meanwhile, has been mum about his thoughts, but confirmed Ohio State was every bit at the top of his list, which also includes Wake, Michigan State and Indiana.
"I love everything about them," he said of the Buckeyes. "I just love them.
"But I like everybody else too so I've still got some back consideration."
Back consideration? I wondered what that meant. Could Oden already have his mind just about made up? Did back consideration mean he had another school to pick if Conley had changed his mind?
I knew he wasn't going to tell me, so instead I followed up with a question about his official visit to Ohio State, which he made in mid-May along with Conley, offering precious few public comments since.
"They gave me a good visit," he said. "I had a lot of fun. That's all I needed."
Considering Oden's quiet nature, that Conley seemed more gung ho about OSU prior to the visit and what I had heard in confidence during the week -- several reliable sources had told me their choice of OSU was virtually a done deal and that they may have already issued a joint verbal to head coach Thad Matta -- it would be easy to conclude they are about to be fitted for scarlet and gray.
But Conley did a good job of leaving the proverbial door open when he said, "Both coaches (Matta and Wake Forest boss Skip Prosser), they know how to win. I've watched Thad Matta since he was at Butler and Xavier and I know he can do it at any program he goes to. Both coaches, they handle guards very well and I feel they can both develop me for the future. Their players aren't going anywhere else."
"(My parents) like both schools just like I do. They're kind of up in the air with both of them, just like I am. They don't know which one and we talk about it all the time. It's a real hard decision right now."
I reminded myself that teen-aged kids change their minds all the time, that their parents had begged them to give it more time after they returned from Columbus giddy about Ohio State -- that Wake and the allure of the ACC can't be counted out, that Oden could always do the crowd-pleasing thing and opt for Indiana University, and that the two were to head to Purdue's team camp for the weekend, no doubt ensuring they'd face more local pressure.
And then there's the ultimate wild card, the NBA. The league announced a new minimum age restriction of 19 when it finalized its latest collective bargaining agreement, but there was talk of a provision for highly regarded players to ask for early entry at 18, which Oden will be upon graduation next year.
Before the restriction, just about every pundit assumed Oden would follow the path of every top-five big man of the last 10 years and jump to the pros, a key Kevin Garnett turned in the mid-'90s.
"I think he's going to the league," Dallas Lauderdale of Solon, Ohio, told me when I asked him if there was a Greg Oden factor with his recruiting.
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</TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>Indianapolis star Greg Oden seems ready to give Ohio State the inside presence it hasn't had since Ken Johnson.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- End Image-->Even Oden's own coach seemed to be of the mind-set of "I'll believe it when I see it."
"It'll be a hard thing to turn down," longtime Lawrence North coach Jack Keefer said weeks ago. "There will be some people who will sit down with him and tell him, 'If you go now, that means you'll get your first three-year contract over with quicker and therefore your next contract blah, blah, blah,' and they're going to show him all the millions of dollars there are to be made that he hasn't thought about probably.
"So he has to get through all that, but his intentions are to go to college because that's what he really wants to do."
Keefer, though, also predicted weeks ago the decision would come at the very end of June and intimated Ohio State was in good standing.
"I think it starts with Matta. He has been recruiting Mike since he was at Xavier, I know, and Mike had as one of his choices Xavier back in those days. So I think you start there and it certainly helped when (Daequan) Cook (committed) there.
"But I think Matta is probably the biggest strength of them all. He's just a very aggressive, very energetic guy.
"We've had every coach go through here from around the nation the last two or three years, but he just comes at you with a work ethic and he convinces the kid that they'll be better when they leave Ohio State. He goes through their workout in the morning and in the evening with them and what they'll be doing in the four years they're going to be there. He feels they'll be ready for the next step up after they've been in his program for four years."
Matta's sales pitch apparently was strong enough for Oden to pass on an unofficial visit to IU and for both to stay tucked away in their Chapel Hill hotel room instead of taking the guided tour of North Carolina while there for another AAU tourney.
It also apparently has stuck with them enough to make OSU either the grand-prize winner of the Oden-Conley sweepstakes, or, at worst, a very unlucky bridesmaid.
I drove away from the Tiernan Center sure that I had enough to at least paint a very rosy picture for OSU fans.
The Indianapolis Star stole some of that thunder with a report that circulated the next morning claiming that an unnamed family member of Oden's had inside information that the two were about to tab Ohio State. The paper later quoted AAU teammate Eric Gordon as saying it was known for a while in the inner circle that OSU was the pick.
I also came to find out that Oden, Conley and Cook spent some of their free time at the USA Basketball Youth Developmental Festival in San Diego in early June telling the likes of Lance Thomas, Thaddeus Young and Bryce Webster that they needed a forward to join them and Dave Lighty of Cleveland to complete the dream class. Young, by the way, told a scout at the NBA Camp last weekend that he received a text message from an unnamed coach telling him Oden and Conley were committed to OSU.
But I didn't know hardly any of that info when I began to leave Richmond.
On my way up to the I-70 on-ramp I realized I needed to fill up the gas tank and pulled in front of a white SUV to an open pump. While dispensing the much-needed liquid a familiar face came out of the store -- Conley. He caught my gaze and smiled.
"I swear I'm not following you," I joked. He came over for a chat and we made sure each other knew the San Antonio Spurs had just won the NBA championship and mentioned how we still had some traveling to do.
"You going back tonight?" Conley asked.
"Actually I'm staying with family in Centerville, so I just need to get there," I said. "How about you?"
"Yeah," he said. "Another trip home."
Just then Oden came out followed by a white-haired man I assume was Keefer, who had the unenvious task of transporting a 17-year-old who already is worth $100 million. After a few more pleasantries we were on National Road headed to the interchange. I passed the SUV and offered a wave to Conley and couldn't help but notice the symbolism ahead.
They were in the lane headed to the sign that said "70 West, Indianapolis." I was in the right lane about to follow the sign that read, "70 East, Columbus, O."
The way things were proceeding I was pretty sure I would be taking that route west again soon for a press conference -- and that Keefer one day would be driving the other way to deliver possibly one of the best packages in the history of Ohio State athletics.
Actually I used to be real close to there (my college was right near indy), but now I'm back up in that state that shall not be named (hopefully gonna move to Cols in about a month).ScarletInMyVeins said:
Yeah, just to clarify... On Wednesday, Indianapolis Lawrence North basketball teammates Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. are expected to announce their college choice at a 1 p.m. Central (2 p.m. Eastern) news conference.
