Clifford’s Recruitment Rising

New England Recruiting Report | Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

Dennis Clifford landed a scholarship offer last week from newly appointed Boston College head coach Steve Donahue, according to Bay State Magic director and head coach Kalon Jenkins. 

Donahue, who was previously the head coach at Cornell before taking over at Boston College, hadn’t seen Clifford play against competition since last summer’s AAU Nationals but attended two of Milton Academy’s workouts during last month’s contact period. 

Last Tuesday, Clifford visited the Chestnut Hill campus unofficially and left with a scholarship offer. 

“I figured this was something that might happen as the summer went on,” Jenkins said, “but when he went up to campus, Coach Donahue offered him a scholarship.” 

On the surface, Clifford would seem to be the perfect fit for Donahue’s system, as he has the size, skill set, and basketball I.Q. to play the high post position in Donahue’s offense. 

Clifford’s recruitment has quickly gone to new levels within the last month.  It started with schools like Fairfield, Charlotte, and Siena joining a rapidly growing list of mid-major programs to pursue the talented seven-footer.  Then UMass and Providence made stops at the Milton Academy gym with Minutemen head coach Derek Kellogg extending a scholarship offer just a couple of weeks ago. 

The Boston College offer was the most recent development until Indiana head coach Tom Crean contacted Jenkins within the last few days, saying that the Hoosiers were looking for a big man in the class of 2011 and planned to watch Clifford during the upcoming July live period. 

Clifford’s first two scholarship offers came this fall from Northeastern and Princeton.