Kentucky Sports Radio

One of the weirdest and most entertaining recruiting sagas in years may be coming to an end this week. Adam Zagoria, who writes Zag’s blog amongst other things, is hearing from a Big East assistant coach who is telling him that the word is Lance Stephenson will join forces with Cincinnati on Tuesday. This would be perfect timing, as it is a day after his scheduled appearance in a Brooklyn court on sexual assault charges.

Lance visited Cincinnati over the weekend with his family and was able to play pick up games with some of the Cincinnati players. One unnamed player gave Lance this review: “He was doing good. I guarded him. He played good. We could use him. If we get him we’ll be good.” According to Zagoria, if this visit was an official visit, which is still unknown, it would be Lance’s fourth. He has also taken official visits to Kansas, Maryland and St. John’s. Kansas was the rumored leader but they got their top target, Xavier Henry, when Calipari left Memphis. Since then, Lance’s name has been bounced around with the likes of Europe, Kentucky, Arizona, Florida International and more.

If this bit of news does truly mark the stopping point of the Lance Stephenson recruiting train, you can count me as one of the saddened. Lance Stephenson was kind of like my version of Facebook. I was able to check in with him daily, get some status updates, be surprised by his latest escapades and hopefully get to see some pictures from those escapades as well. I was really hoping to see the Lance Stephenson: European Vacation version of those escapades, but I guess I’ll have to settle with having him right across the Ohio and in my own backyard.

Other recruiting notes

- The Henry family is featured in this article from the Kansas City Star. Carl Henry explains that his son, Xavier, is not attending classes at Kansas this summer due to the fact that he just doesn’t really want to go to class. Carl says, “If he didn’t have to go to college, he wouldn’t do it.” Another bit of interesting news is that the Henry’s actually considered sending Xavier to Europe for a season, after their commitment to Kansas.

- A good friend of KSR and myself, Alex Schwartz who runs NorthStar Basketball, got the chance to talk to 2011 recruit Jarrod Davis of Lakewood High School in New Jersey. Davis listed Kentucky amongst his suitors, which include the likes of Villanova, Georgetown, Maryland, Texas, Syracuse, Indiana and UConn, amongst others. UK has not offered yet but Villanova, St. Joe’s, Rice, Texas and Syracuse have.  Just another name to keep in mind during the summer AAU circuit. Schwartz does a very good job covering New Jersey and national recruiting. You should check out his site from time to time if you enjoy following recruiting.

- Jaylen Beckham was recently ranked #36 in his class by NY2LASports.com. That is the top ranking of anyone in the state of Kentucky, further proving just how good Beckham can be. As I told you before, he grew up a big Wildcats fan and has been hearing from the new coaching staff. Other services to rank Beckham include: ESPN (graded an 86), Jerry Meyer of Rivals (listed with his best of 2012 as prospects who have stood out this spring), Hoop Scoop (#42 in 2012).

- Also, Evan Daniels of Scout.com reported earlier this morning that Scott County’s Ge-Lawn Guyn has committed to Charlotte. Guyn was the top 2010 player in the state of Kentucky, according to Scout, and was also considering WKU, Cincinnati, and Indiana amongst others.

- With the Lance news and the other news listed, the update of players “lost in the shuffle” during the coaching changes will probably wait until tomorrow’s post. See ya then and have a good sunny Sunday.