College basketball recruiting notebook. …
Texas high school power forward deluxe Marques Bolden, who attended last season’s Late Night in the Phog on an unofficial campus visit, will visit Duke officially Sept. 18-19, according to ESPN.com.
Bolden, a 6-10, 240-pound senior from DeSoto High, tells Jayhawkslant.com he will definitely make an official visit to KU at a yet-to-be-determined date. Rivals.com’s No. 14-rated player in the Class of 2016 is also considering Kentucky, LSU, Baylor, SMU North Carolina, Louisville, Texas, N.C. State, Oklahoma and others.
Fox update: De’Aaron Fox, a 6-3 senior point guard from Cypress Lakes High in Katy, Texas, who is ranked No. 9 nationally, picked up scholarship offers from Kentucky and North Carolina after scoring 35 points for Houston Hoops AAU in a win over Arizona Power Black in last week’s Las Vegas Classic.
Fox is considering KU, UK, UNC, Arizona, Texas, Louisville, Baylor, Oklahoma State and others.
“I really don’t want to give anything away because I’m cutting my list down to about six or seven in about two weeks or maybe less than two weeks,” Fox told Arizona.rivals.com. “I don’t want to say anything that puts anybody ahead of anybody, but they (Arizona Wildcats) have made it a priority to try and get me.
“You don’t want to go somewhere expecting to be a one-and-done but that coach has never had a one-and-done kid,” Fox added. “If it’s never happened in history there’s a small percent chance you can do it. That’s why everyone wants to go to Kentucky. They want to be a one-and-done. I watch that stuff. I really think about stuff. I analyze the game and analyze what the coach does and analyze what they’ve done the last 10 years and stuff like that. It’s great knowing what I’m coming into.”
Fox, who averaged 16.8 points and 5.4 assists in summertime EYBL play, is definitely doing his homework.
“Every school that’s going to be on my list they win,” he told Arizona.rivals.com. “The last three years every school on my list they’ve been at least a top-four team going into the NCAA tournament. They put guys into the league and I just want to go to a great situation where I can excel and try to take my talents to the NBA.”
Fox is planning on taking five official visits and announcing his choice sometime in December.
“There’s a lot to like about Fox,” writes Ricky O’Donnell of SBnation.com. “At 6-4 with elite quickness and good instincts both scoring and facilitating, he likely projects as the best two-way point guard in the class. He grabbed 48 steals in 17 EYBL games (2.8 per game), leading the circuit in that category. It’s no wonder that Shaka Smart and Texas are all over him. This is the perfect point guard to the play the type of pressure defense by which Smart’s teams have always been defined.
“Offensively, there’s not many point guards in the country who can match up with Fox when he’s feeling it. This was epitomized when he dropped 40 points — including 17 straight — at an EYBL stop in Houston earlier this year,” O’Donnell added.
Wiley update: Austin Wiley, a 6-10 junior forward from Spain Park High in Birmingham, Alabama, has narrowed his choices to KU, Alabama, Auburn, Duke, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Michigan State, Mississippi State, North Carolina, UAB and Vanderbilt. He made the announcement Tuesday on Twitter. Wiley averaged 19.0 points and 12.2 boards his junior season. He’s ranked No. 15 in the Class of 2017 by Rivals.com.