Couple of quick recruiting updates for your Wednesday afternoon...
This flew way under the radar, but over the weekend, Jeremy Miller, a 6-foot-9, 215 pound power forward playing at the New Hampton School, verbally committed to Northeastern.
Happy to say that, I just committed to NorthEastern University ✔️ pic.twitter.com/5xfSvccjsr
— Jeremy Juice Miller (@imjuice21) October 18, 2014
You'll recall that Miller originally committed to BC under Donahue, but then reopened his commitment after the school parted ways with the head coach. Offers certainly come and go, but at one point, Miller claimed offers from a number of major conference programs, including UConn, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Providence. So the news that Northeastern coach Bill Coen secured Miller's commitment came as a bit of a surprise, at least to me, anyway.
After BC hired Christian, Miller was quoted as saying he "wanted him (Christian) to recruit me." It's unclear what, if any, work Christian put in to re-recruit Miller, but it's still one less local prospect on the Eagles' radar.
In other news, 6-foot-11 PF Josh Sharma (Northfield Mount Hernon) has verbally committed to Stanford.
Officially committed to Stanford University!!! #FearTheTree
— Josh Sharma (@Josharma42) October 22, 2014
As one would expect of a four-star, 6-foot-11 player, Sharma had a slew of high major offers from programs from all over the country. He took official visits to Wisconsin (January 4), BC (September 19) and Stanford (October 18) this year before verbally committing to the Cardinal.
At face, it would appear Boston College let another local prospect get away, which I get can certainly be frustrating for fans. Christian was hired in part based of his recruiting acumen, and the additions of Murphy and Spinelli gave fans hope that BC could start to turn things around recruiting in their own backyard. But it never really felt like BC had Sharma locked up in the first place. For a long time, Sharma was thought to be a Wisconsin lean, with Stanford coming on strong late and securing the big name's verbal commitment. Really hard to get worked up over a commit that was probably a long shot to come to the Heights.
Still, Sharma joins a long line of high profile 2015 targets that ultimately decided to take their talents elsewhere--Donovan Mitchell (Louisville), Terrance Mann (Florida State), Aaron Falzon (Northwestern) Jeremy Miller (Northeastern) and now Sharma. This, combined with the whole Falzon mess, and things don't look as promising as they once did for Christian's first full recruiting class.
The addition of a guy like Markis McDuffie will help to sweep the Falzon mess under the rug, but even with the short, three-verbal-commitments-in-a-week burst back in early September, just feels like a long time since the program notched a win on the recruiting trail. However, still a ways away from full-on panic mode.