When you land a top 10 recruit in basketball, there's going to be quite a bit written about landing said recruit, especially when he's easily the highest rated player left on the board. Luckily, we're here to catch you up on most of it...
Andy Katz puts it all into perspective (by making a baseball analogy about a basketball recruit)...
West Virginia landed Ebanks, a 6-foot-8 forward, on Sunday, and the expectation is that he will be a home run get for Bob Huggins (is there any doubt that Huggs wasn't going to get stud recruits in Morgantown?).
"He's pretty good," Huggins said from the Big East meetings Monday in Florida. "We'll be hard to guard. We've got a lot of balance."
If Joe Alexander returns for his senior season, then the Mountaineers will be extremely hard to guard. But Alexander is a serious candidate to stay in the draft since he's being considered for a lottery spot.
If Alexander doesn't return, Huggins said that Ebanks will get the majority of Alexander's touches. He also said that there are plenty of plays to run for Da'Sean Butler and Alex Ruoff, too, to make this team hard to defend.
Later in the piece, Dan Dakich weighs in with his thoughts on Ebanks. I don't know who this unnamed assistant is, but I automatically trust him more than Dakich...
"He has great hands, he can really score," Dakich said. "It's a really good get, early, late, whenever. It's a good get. He can score from the angles and rebound. He looks like he really likes to play."
Dakich said that when Ebanks came to Bloomington his visit, the Long Island native wanted to be in the gym as much as possible.
One assistant that was recruiting Ebanks said of him, "He'll have a major impact. He's a big-time scorer."
Doug Gottlieb goes way out on a limb and predicts that Ebanks is a good player and will help the Mountaineers. He does make a good poiint about the Big East next year, though. Even without Alexander and a more marquee conference schedule, most games in the league are going to be tough...
Devin Ebanks signed at WVU and will really help the Mountaineers, with or without Joe Alexander, next season. Several agents that I am close with believe Alexander is good as gone, and Ebanks will fit in really well in his stead. Put WVU with loaded Pitt, Notre Dame, UConn, Villanova, Syracuse and Louisville as the teams to beat in the loaded Big East. With Cincy, Providence, Marquette and Georgetown in tow, everything we said about the Pac-10 last season appears to true about the Big East this season.
The main Rivals recruiting site checked in with Ebanks's AAU coach, who had good things to say about the system WVU runs and how Ebanks will fit into it...
"He'll have plenty of opportunities to get shots [at WVU] and he'll be able to play out on the wing, which is his natural position. It's a total team effort there. It's pretty simple and that's not to knock Memphis and the other schools he was looking at."
And lastly, why not hear a little from the man himself, Devin Ebanks...
In the stands to watch his future teammate was West Virginia signee Kevin Jones from nearby Mount Vernon. The two met while visiting Indiana while Sampson was still coaching there. Along with Bryant, they represent the mounting success that Bob Huggins is enjoying in New York City. "Coach just said he likes tough kids who have that New York pedigree," Ebanks says.