North Carolina added a highly regarded wing player to its 2012 recruiting class late Thursday night when J.P. Tokoto of Menomonee Falls, Wisc., announced that he is committing to the Tar Heels.
Ritchie Davis, Tokoto’s club coach with the Wisconsin Playground Warriors, confirmed that Tokoto had spoken to North Carolina coach Roy Williams on the telephone and informed him that he had chosen the Tar Heels.
Junior college linebacker Fabby Desir signed with North Carolina on Monday and has overnighted his scholarship papers to the school, his coach confirmed today in an e-mail.
Lackawanna (Pa.) College coach Mark Duda calls Desir a "high-motor kid" who is going with excellent speed as a converted running back and safety at 6-foot and 230 pounds.
Desir joins a class that was ranked No. 17 in the nation by scout.com by on signing day last month.
North Carolina will add junior college linebacker Fabby Desir to a 2011 class that was ranked No. 17 in the nation by scout.com on signing day.
Desir will sign with the Tar Heels at noon today, Lackawanna (Pa.) College coach Mark Duda said.
"He's a super strong kid, incredibly tenacious, goes after the ball very, very well," Duda said.
Norfolk (Va.) Christian forward James McAdoo, a North Carolina signee rated the No. 5 player in the Class of 2011 by ESPNU, was announced Tuesday as a participant in the 2011 Jordan Brand Classic, scheduled for April 16 at Time Warner Cable Arena.
In an exclusive telephone interview, McAdoo discussed which player he patterned his game after, his recent game against fellow UNC signee at the Smith Center, and why he decided not to graduate from high school early in 2010 to join the current Tar Heel team.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
Winter Park, Fla., senior guard Austin Rivers, a Duke signee who's ranked the No. 1 player in the Class of 2011, was selected Tuesday to play in the 2011 Jordan Brand Classic, scheduled for April 16 at Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena.
In an exclusive telephone interview, he talked about his goals for the Jordan Brand and McDonald's All-America games, his plans for improvement, and the effect his father, Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, has had on him:
High-scoring guard Austin Rivers anticipates cheers and perhaps some boos when he plays in the 2011 Jordan Brand Classic at Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable Arena at 8 p.m. on April 16.
Rivers joins Michael Gbinije as one of two Duke signees on the roster announced this afternoon for the high-profile high school all-star game. The game will have a distinct Duke-Carolina flavor, as North Carolina signees James McAdoo and P.J. Hairston also are on the roster.
“I know there’s going to be a lot of Duke people there to support me and a lot of North Carolina people hating on me,” Rivers said. “At the end of the day, it’s all good. The Duke and North Carolina fans are the best fans in basketball, in my opinion.”
High Point’s Quincy Miller, who has signed with Baylor, and Winston-Salem’s Sir’Dominic Pointer (St. John’s) will provide homegrown talent to the game, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
North Broward (Fla.) Prep coach Scott Williams said 6-foot-10 Josip Mikulic reminds N.C. State assistant coach Monte Towe of Dwayne Schintzius, a 7-footer who played for Towe and Norm Sloan at Florida in the 1980s and later in the NBA.
Mikulic, a current high school junior who is originally from Croatia, has committed to N.C. State, Williams said.
"He's an extremely good shooter," Williams said. "He has NBA range and is very fundamentally sound for a big kid. He's a good, quality basketball player."
Rasheed Sulaimon gave Duke its second top-20 commitment in a week in the Class of 2012 when he chose the Blue Devils after visiting campus for Wednesday's game against North Carolina.
Sulaimon, a 6-foot-4, 180-pound shooting guard from Strake Jesuit College Prep in Houston, Texas, is rated No. 19 in the class by scout.com. Earlier in the week, 6-8 forward Alex Murphy of St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., committed to Duke. Murphy is ranked No. 11 in the class by scout.com.
Marland Lowe, who coaches Sulaimon for the Houston Hoops club team, said Sulaimon was impressed with the atmosphere at Cameron Indoor Stadium and the academics at Duke. Lowe said Sulaimon is an excellent student who also considered Texas, Baylor, Arizona, Stanford and Harvard.
Since Roy Williams began coaching at North Carolina at the beginning of the 2003-04 season, the Tar Heels and Duke have met seven times.
Duke won the first three and swept the last two in the 2010 NCAA title season. In between, North Carolina won seven of nine on its way to two NCAA championships.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who’s 34-35 in his career against North Carolina, has a chance to get to .500 if Duke wins tonight.
It has become common in basketball for college teams in a personnel bind to ask players to graduate from high school a year early to fill a roster spot at a position of need.
In 2009, Andre Dawkins enrolled a year early at Duke after Elliot Williams transferred to Memphis. James McAdoo considered graduating early to join North Carolina after David and Travis Wear suddenly bolted for UCLA last summer, but McAdoo eventually decided to stay in Norfolk, Va., for his senior year of high school.
