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Washington Post:

Big Center Heading to Texas

Just got off the phone with Good Counsel Coach Mike Hibbs, who had the news that center Julius Omoniurhie has committed to play for Southern Methodist.

Omoniurhie, a 6-11 senior who moved to the U.S. from Nigeria, visited SMU two weeks ago. He visited Binghamton this past weekend and also had an offer from Texas Christian, Hibbs said.

"TCU just called and said they heard we had a big kid, so he called that way because they needed a big," Hibbs said. "SMU was the one that had been on him all along since the spring. They have a number of African kids on their team. They knew Godwin [Owinje], who brought Julius over here and Talib [Zanna of Bishop McNamara] and all those guys. Binghamton had been recruiting some of our other guys.

"SMU really wanted him and he really enjoyed his time down there. It seemed like they had a family and the coaches were very involved with the players. He said it felt like being here."

I'll have more from Julius this afternoon...

interesting.......never heard of this kid. Rivals has him listing NC State, Penn St, South Florida, SMU and TCU....with no rating?

Here's a Maryland Terps scouting report on him: http://maryland.scout.com/2/612037.html

Looks like a good get

ponyboy wrote:Here's a Maryland Terps scouting report on him: http://maryland.scout.com/2/612037.html

Good find. That was from his Soph season in Jan 2007 (16 years old). Went up against a 6'11 junior (who got offers from Maryland, Marquette, W. Virginia, and Virgina then signed with Davidson) and managed to post 8 points, 10 boards, and 5 blocks. Pretty good stuff.

Short video clip. Good lord he is tall for a Soph.

http://media.putfile.com/Julius-Omoniurhie

ESPN article on him folliwing his Junior season. Plays in a very competitive league apparently (maybe some of our DC area posters could shed a little light).

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/ri ... lege+hoops

Ranked the 294th Junior in the nation by Hoop Scoop last year.

How did Doh convince him we had a good school of agriculture?

Mexmustang wrote:How did Doh convince him we had a good school of agriculture?

By showing him how perfect the grass at Ford is, and telling him that the Blue in the end-zones was specially grown by the ag department.

-CoS

wonder what this means for Ruslan Pateev?

Rivals article from last April quotes him as receiving interest from Clemson, Pitt, Virginia Tech, Maryland, St. John's and Georgetown (to what extent, who knows). I'm surprised with his AAU experience on a pretty competitive team that rivals does not even have a rating for him... I'll assume they're having a hard time deciding b/w four and five stars.

Looks like a nice Bamba replacement with substantially more weight at that age. Good to hear he runs the floor the same way. We are cornering the market on African players....

ponydawg wrote:wonder what this means for Ruslan Pateev?

Hopefully competition. If not, we did not want him anyway.

Man, we are soooo picky.

Will be nice when we start actually wanting some of these kids.

Here's a preview on his high school, written by one of the local papers:

The Good Counsel boys basketball team showed marked improvement during Coach Mike Hibbs’s second season at the helm, and many factors point to further success this winter as most of last year’s team remains intact, including All-Gazette first-team selection Jordan Clarke, a 6-foot-8 forward who will play for the University of Vermont next year.

‘‘We’ve got six sophomores on varsity — six sophomores, three juniors and three seniors,â€