Villanova has been hot on the trail for North Carolina-based shooting guard Allerik Freeman, but they will need to start addressing those recruiting letters to a new address. According to the Charlotte Observer, he will transfer to Henderson, Nevada basketball powerhouse, Findlay Prep for his senior year of high school. The move was announced by Freeman himself when he tweeted, "Findlay Prep bound" on Wednesday afternoon.
Freeman had previously narrowed his list to just Kansas and Villanova, who are still presumed to be his leaders, but he has also added offers from Duke, Ohio State and UCLA to his consideration. He is spending this summer playing for Boo Williams, who also coached Scottie Reynolds, on the AAU (and Nike EYBL) circuit.
Findlay is a basketball-first program that operates out of a Las Vegas suburb, it has often been criticized since the "school" itself offers no real classes, but instead sends its athletes to the private Henderson International School for academic instruction. Despite the criticism of its structure, the program has been successful at placing players at Division I schools —all of their graduates have went on to play at Division I institutions (and qualified academically).
Villanova will be familiar with Findlay since they were also recruiting point guard Corey Joseph out of the school a few years ago.
Last season at his Olympic high school in Charlotte, Freeman averaged 17.6 points, 5.8 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.3 steals. He moves to a program that has won three of the last four ESPN National High School Invitational tournaments. Findley Prep is 157-8 in the last five seasons and has never lost at home, while producing six McDonald's All Americans.
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Dickerson sets visits; Nova not among them
According to ZagsBlog.com, 7-foot center Jordan Dickerson, out of IMG Academies in Florida has qualified academically to play Division I basketball and begun to set visits to various suitors:
Darrell Crawford, Dickerson’s uncle, told SNY.tv Wednesday that his nephew is planning visits to Providence, South Carolina, Auburn and possibly St. John’s.
Florida State and South Florida are among the schools also in the mix.
It appears that either Villanova has lost interest in the super-tall big man as a potential member of the 2012 class or he has eliminated the Wildcats from his list. Either way, this development would appear to close the 2012 recruiting class and leave 3 open scholarships in the very deep 2013 recruiting class to be filled.