While many of us figured this out yesterday, it's always good to hear it from someone so close to the situation as Zags. After Gary Parrish let everyone know that Florida was out of it and Arizona was having doubts, a lot of fans saw that Maryland and Memphis were the only schools left, and Memphis' standing with Lance is unclear. Combined with Lance Sr.'s very kind words about the Maryland coaching staff last week, quite a few people assumed Maryland is leading for Lance. As we mentioned in the Maryland Minute post, Mr. Zagoria himself came to that conclusion today, adding in some logic about Gary being the longest tenured in the recruitment:
That leaves Gary Williams at Maryland, assuming Stephenson ends up in college.
I know I have gone on record before saying Maryland was out of it, but Williams has now been in this thing the longest of any of the coaches involved.
At one point it was Kansas, Maryland and St. John’s. When that was the case Bill Self and Norm Roberts had put in the most time with Lance.
But Williams has now been involved since last fall/winter, longer than Arizona, Florida or Memphis.
By this logic, he decided that it's likely Marlyand is the leader. It's pure and simple speculation, and Zags has been wrong before (a lot), but it's still nice to have some confirmation that we aren't wearing Terp-colored glasses.
By the way, we've given Zags a lot of crap for how he's reported on the situation, but I do give him props for coming out and saying he said Maryland was out of it earlier. Not a full-fledged retraction, but darn close.
On topic, we'll have to wait until his court case is decided, which would be June 29, before anything is announced. If he's found straight up guilty, there's a good chance he'd go to JuCo or Europe (even though we nearly took Tyree Evans, who was about 4x worse than Lance). If he's not or if he is able to plea bargain it down, I expect we'll see a commitment not long after. Then it's a matter of his amateur status, which could be in jeopardy due to the BornReady.tv site. The NCAA is rumored to be readying an investigation that would kick off as soon as he commits. I don't understand why they don't just start it now, but whatever works for them. Anyway, that appears to be a major issue. I doubt they'd rule him completely ineligible, but rather give a few games in suspension.
There are obviously a lot of hurdles when it comes to Lance, but let's just get a verbal first, eh?