Gopher Hoops with weekday recruiting visitor

On New Year’s Eve, UCLA fired coach Steve Alford. What does that have to do with Gopher basketball recruiting? Well, UCLA had a verbal commitment from Grant Sherfield, a combo guard who is playing his senior season at Sunrise Academy in Wichita, KS. And why is that significant? Well, Gopher’s assistant coach, Kyle Linsted spent the last three seasons at Sunrise and now the Gophers are in the mix for the 4-star guard.

Sherfield has three official visits planned and it kicks off with a trip to Minnesota this week. He will be here Monday through Wednesday before he heads to Wake Forest for the weekend.

What do we know about Sherfield?

He is a combo guard who is likely more of a scoring point than a bigger shooting guard. At Sunrise this year he averaged 15.7 ppg and shot 38% from three. Being around 6’ 2-3”, I would suspect that Sherfield will play more point than off guard at the next level but would certainly be capable of both.

The lack of playmaking and scoring guards on the current roster has been an issue offensively. Sherfield, along with Marcus Carr becoming eligible and with Tre Williams already committed, would certainly help Pitino going forward.

He is here now, he’ll be in attendance at the Purdue game. So hopefully he has a great experience on Tuesday witnessing a rocking Barn that results in an upset win over Purdue.