Huge recruiting weekend for Gophers

For basketball as well as football.  The football team is bringing in several of their higher profile recruits but this is going to be a huge basketball recruiting weekend as well.

Currently, GopherIllustrated is listing six recruits who are planning to be here for the USC game.  I'm certain that more will be added to this list but currently here are your in visiting coming recruits...

1. Dillon van der Wal - 3-Star - TE
2. Steven Montgomery - 3-Star - DB
3. Trayion Durham - 3-Star - RB
4. Lovett Gibson - 2-Star - WR
5. Trayion Durham - NR - WR
6. Cam McDaniel - NR - RB

But enough about football, this is a really big hoops recruiting weekend.  As things stand the team will have just two scholarships available for next year and there are there appears to be three recruits who the staff covets more than others.  The first is Joe Coleman, brother of Dan Coleman, who visited last week.  He has scheduled two other visits, one to Santa Clara and one to Iowa State.  The other two will be visiting this weekend.

PG - Naadir Tharpe - Tharpe is a 4-STAR PG out of New Hampshire and he is a top 100 player according to Rivals.  He's been described as a pass-first type PG.  "I think that Naadir's shot has improved dramatically in the last few years," said Brewster Academy Head Coach Jason Smith. "He's a throwback guard in a sense that he is a true point guard. There aren't many high school kids that understand what the point guard position entails and Naadir is definitely a pass first point guard. He has an extremely high basketball IQ."

With Al Nolen graduating, Tharpe would have a great shot at coming in and playing right away.  He has visited Rutgers and has offers from Boston College, Marquette, Providence, St. Johns, Seton Hall, Iowa State and others.

SG - Josh Oglesby - The 3-STAR shooter from Cedar Rapids, Iowa is the eventual replacement for Blake Hoffarber.  Oglesby visited Iowa last weekend as the Hawkeyes hosted Iowa State and he visited with Ashton Kutcher (really, he did).  After this weekend's visit he'll go on to visit Arizona State and Illinois.

"Josh is most often described as unselfish," said coach Brad Metzger (his HS coach). "He also has been described (by High Major Coaches) as the best shooter in the state. Because he has these two qualities he is unique. He often knows that he can showcase himself and shoot probably three times as much as he does, but he plays the game with a team first mentality, then takes over when necessary. He will score 20-30 points a game and half of the points are all clutch in the last 5-10 minutes of the game."

I'd love to land both of these kids as they would be great replacements for the graduating seniors.

As stated, this is a big weekend for football recruiting but with only two available scholarships this is a HUGE weekend for the basketball team.  A third scholarship may open up depending on the status of Oto Osenieks, but his status is clearly unknown.