Friday, September 03, 2010
Injury to Oak Hill star not as severe as once feared
One-time blue-chipper surfaces at Carson-Newman
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.
Find his College Notebook from The Roanoke Times in Thursday's college sports section
Miss the Insider column? Check out the Insiders blog
Recent columns
Cook, who played at DeMatha Catholic High School through his junior year, underwent surgery today (Friday) for cartilage he tore last weekend at the Boost Mobile Elite 24 all-star game in Venice Beach, Calif.
“It was basically a glorified pick-up game,” said Smith in my first conversation with him today. “There was literally 11 seconds to go and that’s when he did it. Went up for a shot and landed funny.”
The original prognosis was that Cook had a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and would be sidelined for 3-4 months. After hearing from Cook’s mother, Smith called Friday afternoon to say the timetable had been reduced to 4-6 weeks.
The first of Oak Hill’s appearances in Roanoke will be Oct. 21, when the Warriors meet Hargrave Military Academy in an annual scrimmage that is being held this year at William Fleming High School.
Oak Hill will return in late January for the Franklin County Shootout, where they will meet a Roanoke Catholic squad coached by former NCAA Final Four coach Bill Hodges, and then return one week for the Valley Shootout at the Salem Civic Center.
By then, Cook might have his college destination determined. Smith said Cook has narrowed his choices to Georgetown, Arizona, UCLA, North Carolina and Duke.
“I saw he said something the other day about Villanova being back in the picture,” Smith said. “I don’t know where that came from.”
Cook is rated the No. 28 prospect in the country by rivals.com in rankings that were updated Aug. 24, prior to his injury.
Oak Hill’s roster includes the No. 17 player on the rivals.com list, 6-foot-5 Ben McLemore, a St. Louis product who has committed to Kansas, and No. 71 Sidiki Johnson, a 6-8, 220-pound forward who played last year at St. Benedict’s in Newark, N.J., and has made an oral commitment to Arizona.
From the class that will enter college in 2012, Smith has landed the Nos. 49, 55 and 56 players on the rivals.com list: 6-5 Damien Wilson from Austell, Ga.; 6-5 Jordan Adams from Lawrenceville, Ga., and 6-11 A.J. Hammons from Mount Carmel, Ind.
Another Oak Hill senior is 6-9 Daniel Gomis from Sun Valley, Idaho, who has committed to Oregon State.
“We’ve got a really good team,” Smith said. “Hopefully, he’ll [Cook] be back, but we kind of built the team around the guy, so we’ll see what happens.”
Keith Hornsby, the son of musician Bruce Hornsby and a UNC-Asheville recruit, was a 3-point specialist for the Warriors last year who could see time at the point. Adams also could get some time there.
“Usually, what I do is, I don’t bring in two point guards of that ability,” said Smith, who has had the likes of Rajon Rondo and Brandon Jennings at that position. “When I bring in a point guard, I’m pretty much sold on the guy for 28 minutes a game.
“It kind of threw a monkey wrench into everything.”
WHILE CHECKING THE status of several local products playing college football, I was struck by a name that popped up on the roster at Carson-Newman, a Division II power in Jefferson City, Tenn.
It was Jarrell Miller, a 6-3, 250-pound freshman defensive tackle from Highland Springs High School outside Richmond.
How Miller got to be a college freshman, I’m not sure, but it’s the same Miller who was rated the No. 3 prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times when he was a senior at Highland Springs in 2005.
Miller signed with North Carolina and participated in a summer transition program before electing not to enroll in the fall. Instead, he spent the fall of 2006 at Fork Union Military Academy.
By the end of the fall, Miller had reopened his recruiting and eventually picked Connecticut, where he enrolled in the winter of 2007. Prior to the 2007 season, the NCAA ruled that Miller had to be treated as a Division I-A transfer and had to sit out a year.
Miller was listed on Connecticut’s 2008 roster as a redshirt freshman but reportedly left school before the start of preseason workouts.
FORK UNION was the destination of Andre Coble, an all-purpose threat for Meadowbrook High School last year who signed with Temple but did not meet NCAA eligibility requirements.
Coble, named Central Region player of the year, was rated the No. 53 prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times.
