KU basketball recruit Matthew Hurt being pursued heavily by in-state school
Minnesota remains a serious contender for Matthew Hurt, a 6-foot-9 senior forward from John Marshall High in Rochester, Minn., who also has basketball powerhouses Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke and Villanova on his list of prospective schools.
Hurt, the No. 6-rated player in the recruiting Class of 2019 by Rivals.com., was to be visited by Gophers coach Richard Pitino on Thursday for the second time after an in-home visit last week, according to a report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Hurt’s brother, Michael, is a junior forward at Minnesota.
“Hurt has not scheduled any official visits and doesn’t appear to be in any rush to announce his finalists right now,” writes Marcus Fuller of the Star Tribune. “He’s working on a different timetable than the typical process, but Hurt’s in a position as a top-10 talent in his class to be patient if he wants to.”
Hurt averaged 14.7 points (on 63 percent shooting) and 5.7 rebounds a game for the USA Basketball Under-18 team that won a gold medal at the FIBA Americas tournament in June in Canada. KU’s Bill Self was coach of that team.
Robinson-Earl to visit UNC
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, a 6-foot-9 senior forward from IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., will make an official recruiting visit to North Carolina this weekend following recent trips to Notre Dame and Villanova.
Robinson-Earl will visit Kansas for Late Night in the Phog a week from Friday, then make his fifth and final visit to Arizona on Oct. 12-14.
Robinson-Earl’s dad, Lester Earl, played for Tar Heels coach Roy Williams at Kansas. Robinson-Earl, meanwhile, played for Self’s Under-18 team this past June. The country’s No. 10-rated player, formerly of Bishop Miege, averaged 10.7 points and 8.5 rebounds per game in helping the U.S. claim the gold medal. He hit 61.9 percent of his shots.
Robinson-Earl made an unofficial visit to Chapel Hill, N.C., on Nov. 5, 2016. He saw UNC beat Georgia Tech in football, 48-20, and also watched a Tar Heels hoops practice on that trip.
IMG Academy teammate Josh Green, a 6-5 senior guard ranked No. 11 in the Class of 2019 by Rivals.com, also will be visiting UNC this weekend. Green also has KU, Arizona, Southern California and UNLV on his list of schools. He’s set a visit to Arizona for Oct. 11-13. He’s not yet announced a visit date to KU.
Nnaji meets with many coaches
Zeke Nnaji, a 6-foot-10, 215-pound senior power forward from Hopkins (Minn.) High School, has held in-home visits with coaches from Kansas State, Arizona and Indiana so far this week with Ohio State due in on Thursday, according to Zagsblog.com.
Last week, Nnaji, the country’s No. 37-rated player in the Class of 2019 according to Rivals.com, had in-homes with KU’s Self as well as coaches from Kentucky, Georgetown, Baylor and Minnesota. UCLA coaches will visit on Monday.
“By end of September, he’s going to cut his list down to five and those are the five official visits that he’s going to take in October and early November. Then toward the end of November he’s going to decide where he’s going to go because the high school season starts Dec. 1 and he wants to get that over with,” Zeke’s dad, Apham Nnaji, told Zagsblog.com.
Of KU, Zeke Nnaji told Rivals.com: “Coach (Bill) Self came in for an in-home visit on the same day Kentucky came through so that was just crazy to have two legendary coaches in my house. With Kansas, Coach Self was just telling me how he coached Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid at the same time and made it work. You can have a top recruiting class come in and he was saying how he makes it work every year. They’re a great program and I’m looking forward to getting down there for a visit at some point.”
He said he’s likely to attend KU’s Late Night and Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness events as part of unofficial visits.
Anthony update
Cole Anthony, a 6-2 senior point guard from Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., who is ranked No. 3 in the Class of 2019 by Rivals.com, has taken an official visit to Notre Dame and unofficial visits to Miami (Fla.), North Carolina, Wake Forest and UCLA.
He has scheduled an official visit to North Carolina on Sept. 28-30, according to Zagsblog.com.
Anthony is the son of former NBA player Greg Anthony, who lives in Miami. North Carolina assistant coach Hubert Davis was a New York Knicks teammate of Greg Anthony during the 1990s.
Cole Anthony averaged 14.3 points and 4.2 assists a game for Self’s gold-medal winning U18 team in June and has mentioned KU as a possible destination in the past.
Stanley to make an announcement
Kansas recruiting target Cassius Stanley, a 6-5, 170-pound senior shooting guard from Sierra Canyon High School in North Hollywood, Calif., says he’ll have an announcement of some sort on Friday.
Stanley, the No. 31-ranked player in the recruiting Class of 2019 according to Rivals.com, has a list of KU, Southern California, UCLA, Texas, Arizona and Oregon.
“Big Announcement Coming Tomorrow!!” Stanley, who is scheduled to visit KU for the Sept. 28 Late Night in the Phog, wrote on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.
He recently tweeted that he had “great” in-home visits with both KU and Oregon.
Several recruiting analysts have said USC is the perceived leader.
After a Sept. 12 in-home visit with KU, his dad, Jerome, told Jayhawkslant.com: “The in-home visit was just amazing and wonderful. The biggest thing that stands out to us about Kansas is the opportunity. We had a wonderful time with the coaching staff last night.”
Jerome Stanley, according to SLAM Magazine, has been a sports agent for around three decades. His list of clients has included Baron Davis, Chad Johnson, Brian Shaw, Keyshawn Johnson and Dennis Northcutt. Jerome is a graduate of USC, while Cassius’ mom ran track at UCLA.
”USC is in constant communication with me, they check in with me a couple times a week, they’re an L.A. school, I’ve been around it my whole life, my dad went there and he’s represented a lot of players from USC,” Stanley told trojaninsider.com in June. “So, I’ve been there a lot, I’m comfortable around the campus, it’s 30 minutes from my house and you can’t beat that.”
Of his own ability, Stanley told SLAM Magazine: “People see my highlights and think I’m just a dunker and super athletic with no skill. It used to really bug me earlier in high school and I used to really try to prove to other people that I was more than just a dunker. But then I started to realize that I’m just going to play my game. I don’t ever dunk in games, really. I realized that when people come to see my games they might be disappointed, because I’m all skill.”
Gary Bedore
Gary Bedore covers University of Kansas athletics for The Star.
This story was originally published September 20, 2018 at 12:51 PM.