Trimmed Lists

New England Recruiting Report | Friday, August 5th, 2016

Only five prospects in New England's rising senior class of 2017 have come off the board thus far, but with the July evaluation period now behind us, several others have taken steps to bring their recruitment forward in the process i.e. where they stop looking for scholarship offers and instead begin to focus on some finalists.

The trend across the country is for these final lists to be much longer this year than in previous years, with many players keeping more than 10 schools despite the fact that they're only allowed to take official visits to five.

Nevertheless, regardless of the size of the list, when a widely recruited player puts some sort of parameters on their list it does help to simplify the process some. No longer are they expected to entertain calls from interested coaches (something which early on in the process sounds appealling but often times grows to be burdensome) and instead they are able to focus on learning more about their potential destination and also figuring out exactly where they stand on those schools wish list.

Here's a rundown of those in New England that have cut down their list so far:

Tremont Waters was the first major local product to officially trim his list. His announcement came via twitter just days after he led his Expressions squad to the quarterfinals of the Nike Peach Jam. Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Georgetown, Indiana, Connecticut and Yale made the final cut, although Kansas took a commitment from another point guard, Marcus Garrett, earlier this week so it remains to be seen if the Jayhawks are still in the running for his services;

Christian David  missed his final summer on the grassroots circuit after tearing his ACL in the NEPSAC championship game. In the middle of July, he opted to reward the schools that had remained committed to recruiting him throughout the process. He named a final five of Miami, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Butler and Creighton. The 6-foot-7 Canadian native is expected to make a full recovery in time for his final season at Vermont Academy;

Walter Whyte announced earlier this week that he was cutting his list of 30 scholarship offers down to a "Final 12" that offers him a wide variety to choose from, ranging from the Atlantic 10 to the Ivy League and local New England schools all the way out to San Diego. His schools - St. Joseph's, Fordham, Northeastern, Davidson, Penn, Lehigh, St. Bonaventure, Brown, Davidson, Boston University, Yale and San Diego;

A few weeks earlier Whyte's PSA Cardinals' teammate Hasahn French announced his top schools. A lucky 13 made the Commonwealth Academy forward's list and that group included Temple, UMass, UNLV, Minnesota, Saint Louis, USC, Georgia Tech, Seton Hall, Providence, St. John's, Marquette, VCU and Arizona State. French visited his two local suitors, UMass and Providence, unofficially on Thursday.

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