According to his stepfather, former Manley coach Bo Delaney, highly-touted sophomore Crandall Head will not be ending his recruitment any time in the near future.
"Crandall has been down in Champaign a lot the last three weeks, but there isn't going to be any kind of an announcement," Delaney said Tuesday afternoon.
According to Delaney, Head's recruitment is still open and a commitment to Illinois is not a done deal.
Rich South's highly-touted sophomore (and Luther Head's brother) has told a few members of the Illini media that he will be making a decision early this week. All signs point to Illinois, which would give coach Bruce Weber a stellar 2010 class, as Weber picked up Waukegan's Jereme Richmond (the top player in the class) last fall.
I'll keep you updated.
Hales senior Josh Crittle, a 6-8 center, gave an oral commitment to Oregon Wednesday. Crittle is the third player in the class of 2008 to choose Oregon, following his Meanstreets club teammates Michael Dunigan of Farragut and Matt Humphrey of Hales.
"It's great to be going there with my friends," Crittle said. "But I would have chosen Oregon regardless, I just fell in love with the environment there and I really think the coaching staff is going to get the best out of me."
Crittle chose Oregon over Minnesota and Southern Illinois.
I'll have a full story up soon on the new prep website http://highschoolsports.suntimes.com/index.html
Crittle, who trimmed his list to Oregon and Minnesota last week, will likely give an oral commitment to the Ducks sometime tonight or tomorrow, but according to his mother Stephanie, nothing is official yet.
Crittle would join three former Meanstreets teammates at Oregon: Thornton's Joevan Catron, Hales' Matt Humphrey and Farragut's Michael Dunigan.
According to Simeon coach Robert Smith, Simpson gave an oral commitment to Illinois tonight.
"It's all due to his relationship with [Illinois coach Bruce Weber]," Smith said. "We talked about it a lot. You can't go somewhere because of an assistant. Stan liked Illinois because he got along so well with Weber."
Simpson, a 6-9 senior, transferred from Leo to Simeon over the summer. Smith said that Simpson's grades are not a problem, contrary to the rumors that started circulating this summer.
"That might have been from people upset that he left the other school," Smith said. "Stan's grades are fine. A school like Illinois wouldn't be interested in him if it was otherwise."
On Thursday, Illinois received oral commitments from juniors D.J. Richardson, Joseph Bertrand and Brandon Paul. Butler believes that Richardson being the first to commit played a large role in the surge of players headed to the Illini.
"D.J. is fun to play with," Butler said. "He gets guys to elevate their play. Just having him for a month and watching how much better he makes everyone, I was totally impressed. He's the best player in that class. He gets the ball to people in the right position and he's got a great attitude."
According to Ilinois Warriors coach Larry Butler, Simeon center Stan Simpson will announce an oral commitment to Ilinois tonight.
"[Simeon coach] Rob Smith is supposed to call Bruce Weber tonight," Butler said. "I knew once Jerrance Howard got there things would start moving. Ilinois hassome people in their corner trying to get stuff done. Michael Jordan is at practice tonight. Things are going good for Illinois. Everything seem to be falling into place."
According to Illinois Wolves AAU coach Mike Mullins, Sterling guard Joseph Bertrand gave an oral commitment to Illinois Thursday night.
I've updated the story on our new preps site http://highschoolsports.suntimes.com/index.html and we'll be getting a Bertrand photo in soon. What a day for Illinois!
Check out the full story on the Paul and Richardson commitments on the Sun-Times new prep sports site: http://highschoolsports.suntimes.com. I just spoke with Warren coach Chuck Ramsey about Paul, so I'll be adding some of that in a bit.
Two of the top players in the class of 2009, Peoria Central's D.J. Richardson and Warren's Brandon Paul, have given oral commitments to Illinois. We'll have more soon.
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