The Real Story on Ryan Boatright

Last week we discussed the latest development in the recruitment of 16 year-old high school basketball prospect Ryan Boatright, who was offered a scholarship to play at USC by Tim Floyd roughly three years ago. Scott Wolf of the Daily News was the first to report that USC, now under new head man Kevin O’Neill, has decided to stop recruiting the Aurora, Illinois, native. However, Wolf’s incomplete reporting has caused message boards across the web and even Yahoo!’s college basketball writer Eamonn Brennan to suggest that O’Neill and USC backed out of their commitment, because they were somehow dissatisfied with Boatright’s development as a player:

"Three years ago, a talented young man named Ryan Boatright attended a basketball camp at the University of Southern California. Tim Floyd was that team’s coach. Boatright performed well enough at the camp — which really serve as sanctioned recruiting vehicles anyway — that Tim Floyd was immediately enamored of him. Floyd offered Boatright a scholarship. Boatright accepted and verbally committed to USC. All was well.Just kidding. No it wasn’t. Because three years ago Ryan Boatright was 13, and it’s not really cool to recruit 13-year-olds, let alone offer them scholarships. That’s weird and naughty and it makes me feel very uncomfortable, as it should you.At the time, of course, Floyd brushed it off as being competitive. He told reporters that he wasn’t going to sit around and wait for Duke or Kentucky to do the same thing, that he had to get his kids signed when he could. This practice has since been overtly demonized by the National Association of College Basketball Coaches and coaches have largely stopped recruiting sub-freshmen, at least publicly. (Who knows what goes on in private. Let’s not think about it right now.)Now, though, Ryan Boatright — who is a 16-year-old junior — is getting a second brush-off from USC. First, they take him out of the recruiting picture early, before he really knows what’s going on. Now that Tim Floyd has resigned under suspicion of recruiting violations, USC has decided they aren’t really interested in Boatright’s services anymore. They haven’t contacted him since Floyd left, and they aren’t planning on signing him to a letter of intent. Awesome, USC."

Once again, a Yahoo! report regarding USC athletics is entirely inaccurate. For starters, USC didn’t brush off Boatright. In fact, it was Boatright, who decided to open up his recruitment when Floyd resigned last June. With Boatright soon garnering interest from schools such as Duke, O’Neill backed off and looked to fill his scholarship spot in the class of 2011 with local point guard prospect Gelaun Wheelwright.

The Trojans didn’t balk on Boatright, because he wasn’t talented enough to play for their program. In actuality, many have projected him to be ranked in the ESPNU Top 100 next year, and those who saw him play in the Las Vegas summer camp, were thoroughly impressed with his performance. So for Brown and others to sit at their desks and write that USC burned this kid by ending his recruitment is a tad bit absurd. Boatright will likely play at a top 25 school in two years, and in all seriously, the Trojans probably stopped recruiting him because he would be taken by a more prestigious program (i.e. Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, etc.)