Wired Wednesday With Wilson 8-21-19
The weekly Wednesday column is back with some great questions answered! This week I covered what type level player 2021 Elvin Edmonds is, VCU’s recruiting in 2020 and which schools have benefited from the new recruiting rules and schedule.
“What level player is Elvin Edmonds from Hopewell?” –@notkarlhess
When we recently updated our class of 2021 rankings for the state of Virginia, Edmonds found himself slotted at 11th overall. Edmonds ran with Team Loaded Virginia this summer and certainly was able to establish his name in front of college coaches at all levels. I have seen Edmonds look like an elite high major shooter and scorer but I have not seen that type of performance from him enough to solidify him as a high major player. Right now I would consider him has a solid mid major player with definitely the chance to maybe reach the high major level in the future. Off the court he is a high academic kid who ultimately could see a ton of high academic schools to get involved with his recruitment.
“With VCUs 2019 class having 3 combo guards and a big and Top150 PG Ace Baldwin as the first commit of 2020, who and what position do you see VCU targeting to fill out the other 4 spots in a very important 2020 class?” –@RVA_Ram36
VCU made a huge splash to start their 2020 class by landing point guard, Ace Baldwin, out of St. Frances Academy in Baltimore. Mike Rhodes and his staff brought in a tremendous 2019 class so getting things started with Baldwin in 2020 is a huge win. As of right now they will currently have 4 scholarships remaining to fill. My colleague, Colby Giacubeno, recently wrote a story that 2020 Jamir Watkins, is down to five schools including VCU and has scheduled an official visit to them on, August 30-31st. With that being said, Watkins is definitely one guy for Ram’s fans to keep their eyes on. Another 2020 prospect that recently cut their list down to 10 schools and included VCU is 6’8 Keon Ambrose. As you mentioned, with having 3 combo guards coming in for 2019 and another elite guard in Baldwin committed already for 2020, look for the Rams to push for some depth down low in the 2020 class and one guy that could be is 6’8 Mikeal Brown-Jones who just recently included VCU in his final five schools.
“Which coaches/programs have seemed to adapt best to the new recruiting rules and schedule?” –@MemGym
There are a lot of kinks that still need to be worked out with the new recruiting rules and schedule that the NCAA implemented. This past June was the first year of “Scholastic High School Live Periods” which I saw as a tremendous success and after talking to multiple people in this industry, they all seemed to agree with me. When talking about certain programs that might have benefited the most from this, I would have to say low major programs and the lower tier of mid major schools. These types of programs were able to see prospects at that level on their high school teams go up against other elite high school teams whereas college programs might not have been able to see low major prospects on the court as much during an AAU setting just because on AAU teams, you are getting the best of the best from the state and bordering states on one team. There were plenty of DMV area kids that received their first offers after the “June Scholastic Period” from low major schools simply because this new rule was installed.