With the departures of Andrew Lawrence, Matt Sundberg, Trent Wiedeman and Trevonte Dixon, Doug Wojcik and his staff found themselves with open scholarships and a young roster with plenty of room to grow. After successful recruiting visits this past weekend the CofC mens basketball team received verbal commitments from two talented forwards: Glenn Pierre from the class of 2013 and Donovan Gilmore from the class of 2014.
Glen Pierre
Joining an incoming freshman class that already includes PG Joe Chealey, G Johnathan Burroughs-Cook and F Terrance O'Donohue is Glenn Pierre, a 6'11 senior center out of Tampa. Pierre had previously signed a letter of intent to play at Georgia Southern and Coach Charlton Young. After CY's ousting a few weeks ago, Pierre asked for release.
Just as tantalizing a prospect as Theo Johnson last year, the word most associated with Pierre is "upside". He's got incredible length and physical gifts but he needs to add more strength and grow into his body a bit. But if he stepped onto the TD Arena floor tomorrow, Glen could contribute immediately with rebounding, shot blocking and offensive putbacks. Given Wojcik's track record of developing two-way big men and the drastic improvements of Adjehi Baru, Theo Johnson and (based off word of mouth) David Wishon, Glen could develop into a special player.
Aside from the College and Georgia Southern, Pierre was also getting attention from Marshall, St Louis and JMU as his game continued to improve over his senior season. As many scouts have said, his best basketball is clearly ahead of him.
How many teams in the CAA (let alone the country) could roll out a lineup that puts a seven-foot and nearly-seven-foot pair of rim protecters on the floor at one time? Can you imagine how difficult that would be to score on? The potential....
Donovan Gilmore
Donovan Gilmore is a junior in high school capable of doing things like this:
Just let that simmer in your head for the next year as we wait for Mr. Gilmore to arrive on campus. Let's also ponder why the idea of a neon-themed student section has never been brought to the attention of our Sports Marketing Department.
To know how good Donovan Gilmore is, just look at the schools recruiting him: VCU, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi State and NC State all had shown interest. Fortunately, loyalty is a big factor for Donovan and Coach Wojcik had shown sincere interest very early on in recruiting Gilmore to the College. According to Wesleyan (NC) Head Coach Keith Gatlin, there were a number of big schools who were very disappointed to hear Gilmore had chosen CofC.
According to scouts, Gilmore will bring speed, hustle and insane athleticism to the Cougars when he arrives next fall. He's the first commitment to the 2014 class and he looks to be a very good place to start.
