Class of 2009 recruit Maurice Creek put on quite a show at the Reebok Summer Classic in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Creek scored 29 points in DC Triple Threats's win against Belmont Shore, with the 6-foot-5 guard showing off the shooting skills we have all heard about. Creek, who most recently played his high school ball at Connecticut's South Kent Prep, will be playing next year at the well-known Hargrave Military Academy. One of his teammates at Hargrave will be current Triple Threat teammate Chris Braswell, who had 11 points in Tuesday's win and told the Louisville Courier-Journal's Jody Demling the Hoosiers have offered him a scholarship (see above link).
Braswell, a 6-foot-8 power foward, was the No. 58 class of 2008 recruit according to Scout.com (No. 84 on Rivals) and originally committed to play at Georgetown. Early this month, however, the four-star recruit decided to re-open his recruitment and reclassify as a 2009 recruit, where he will play at Hargrave in the fall. Braswell appears to be a major target now for Tom Crean, but the new IU head coach has just one open scholarship for next seaon. With significant interest from Roger Franklin and Christian Watford, and now possibly Braswell, is Crean limited to picking up just one of these players (should any of three actually plan on choosing IU)?
In a similar situation to Crean's, new Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin was forced to recruit the best available talent when he took over the Bearcats in the spring of 2006. Come the end of the year, however, Cronin and junior college transfer and soon to be senior Timmy Crowell mutually decided to part ways. Crowell knew he wasn't going to see much playing time, and Cronin had his eyes on another major recruit and wound up with a consensus top 25 recruiting class. Although Crean has already received verbal commitments from four 2009 recruits, would it be a mistake to limit himself to just one of the possible three major IU targets (Watford, Franklin, Braswell)?
It is clear that Crean cannot entirely assume all of his scholarship players will return and will have to take things day by day (see Ben Allen, Xavier Keeling, Joey Shaw in 2006), so perhaps Crean should not limit himself to five-man 2009 recruiting class if he can get six. Of course, the NCAA could decide to swipe another scholarship from the Hoosiers, not to mention if one of the recruits accepts the "final" scholarship, the others probably will look elsewhere if still open. Nevertheless, if there were the possibility of getting both Franklin and Braswell, for example, would you take that risk if you are Crean? He talks about class and all that should come with IU basketball, but would that be hypocritical if he ditched one of his players for another (assuming no one planned on leaving on their own terms)? Or would he go as far as Xavier's Sean Miller who had one of his players give up a scholarship for a year to make room for Jordan Crawford, and then have five Hoosier walk-ons?
