Yet another recruiting domino that Kentucky was involved in has fallen in another direction, this time Rivals.com #2 overall player Andre Drummond has decided to play for UConn this year, despite being listed in the class of 2012.
While this seems great for the Huskies, some logistical hurdles remain. UConn lost a total of three scholarships for this year, two to a low APR and one to recruiting violations committed by Jim Calhoun and his staff. That means that Connecticut will have to manufacture a scholarship by moving one of their current 10 scholarship players to walk-on status in order to accommodate Drummond.
There is also the problem of getting Drummond through the NCAA Clearinghouse, since he had originally decided to go to prep school and reclassify to 2012, and is not known to have submitted his paperwork to the NCAA watchdog.
There is no doubt that this news is very good for UConn men's basketball, and arguably places them right up near the very top of the pre-season top 25 to # 3 or possibly even supplanting UK at # 2 in the eyes of some experts. No matter what, UConn's addition of Drummond and DeAndre Daniels adds two very skilled freshmen to an already talented squad, and makes UConn a legitimate threat to repeat as NCAA Tournament champions.
Assuming UConn solves the scholarship and NCAA Clearinghouse questions (and I wouldn't bet against it) and Drummond doesn't change his mind, the 2011-12 NCAA basketball picture just got a lot more interesting. Hat tip: John Clay.