There was quite an inflammatory response regarding the possibility that Memphis' new coach would hire the father of top recruit Xavier Henry, thus keeping him at Memphis and opening up the spot for Stephenson. Luckily, Henry's father, Carl, has more integrity. It's a premi article, but for a summary, Carl Henry says he won't go to Memphis. (Looks like we beat ourselves to it - that's just how great of bloggers we are.) Even better, they've confirmed that they're waiting for an official release, which should come in a matter of days (actually, it should've come yesterday). Once that's done, it seems like he'd commit to Kansas a few days later at the most.
Of course, that'd mean there'd be no room for Lance Stephenson there, and he'd be forced to choose between Maryland and St. John's. To temper this news, Mike Decourcy apparently said on a Kansas radio station that Lance is done to KU and is awaiting NCAA Clearinghouse clearing to actually announce (it's a message board link, but he did actually say that). I have some trouble with this - one, Decourcy isn't an insider or even a recruiting analyst (just look at his blog). This would be like Jay Bilas or Andy Katz breaking this story - it's not normal, to say the least. Next, wouldn't Kansas have told the Henry family about this? If they did, there's no way Xavier Henry would consider Kansas. It doesn't make much sense.
If Henry goes to Kansas as expected and Decourcy got something wrong as expected, Stephenson would have two options: either reopen his recruitment, or pick between the two schools he has on his list, Maryland and St. John's. We've hashed and rehashed the reason he shouldn't go to St. John's - exposure, quality of play, media market, he and his family hate NYC, etc. You'd have to assume Maryland would beat out SJU if it came to that. I wouldn't be shocked to see another school, like Memphis now that they have scholarships, get involved, but most teams are out of schollies at this point. Europe remains an outside option, but from what I've heard the exposure they want isn't there, and the interest from Euro teams isn't that great.
As for the other guy in the headline (y'know, the one who's actually a Terp), Terrell Stoglin has received a lot of questions about whether he'd reopen his recruitment now that his hometown Arizona Wildcats have found a coach. There's been quite a few nice responses.
Not at all. . . I am very happy (with the Maryland decision).
To be honest, man, U of A passed me up for three years. I'm not really even worried about them. I made my commitment to Maryland. I'm going to stick with it.
I had people call me for him, but I told them I'm committed.
I love what he's saying right now. It seems like he'll stick, which is great news because I love his game. Let's hope the questions stop soon so he'll get them out of his mind.