NU adds Transfer

Northwestern did finally get a new recruit this spring as 6-9 forward Nikola Cerina announced his intention to join NU’s program. Cerina is a transfer from TCU and will have to sit out next season, but he is a big body that will certainly help when Luka Mirkovic and Davide Curletti graduate as well as provide a good presence in practice this season. His addition is also a positive as it balances out the roster in terms of class. Cerina will join JerShon Cobb as a member of the class of 2014 of which Cobb previously was the only member.

Speaking of Cobb, word is he is recovering from some offseason surgery. I don’t think JerShon was ever totally healthy last season and still he had a very nice year. Hopefully, he’s back to 100% this fall when practice starts and can take on a leadership role.

Some News

First off, congrats to Coach Hardy on his promotion to Associate Head Coach for the Wildcats. It gives him the inside track on the head job at NU if Bill Carmody retires in the near future, but it also boosts his resume in the hunt for other head coaching gigs he might want to pursue in the next couple years as well.

Also, some scheduling news has NU potentially playing in an early season tournament in South Carolina which would include Georgia Tech (also NU’s ACC/Big Ten Challenge opponent) as well as Final Four participate VCU. That would be a great way for NU to test themselves early and hopefully with a strong field would also lead to some national TV games early on in the season. After all, with NU’s lack of news in recruiting it is critical NU build some positive momentum in order to get some good players to play for NU. Otherwise, Hardy might be the future coach, but I’m not sure he’ll have much of a team.

John Shurna is Back for His Senior Year at NU

No great suprise, but still good to hear that John Shura has decided to return to Northwestern for his senior year. His return gives NU a team with four of five starters and six of the top eight players back from a 20-win team in 2010-11.

More on NU Recruiting

David Funk of Big Ten Powerhouse interviewed myself and follow NU bloggers Jay Sharman (Lake the Posts) and Rodger Sherman (Sippin' on Purple) for a feature on NU's basketball recruiting. Here's a link to his article: http://www.btpowerhouse.com/2011/4/30/2142961/northwestern-recruits-have-gone-up-a-notch-but-is-it-enough

John Cannon Picks Georgia over Northwestern

Well, once again Northwestern loses out on a recruit. This time 6-10 center John Cannon picked UGA over NU. The lack of ability to close the deal with recruits hasn’t hurt NU yet, but that’s because of a very strong class which will be seniors next year. After next season, NU is in big trouble without an influx of talent showing up because next year’s sophomore and junior classes combined total three scholarship players. Rumor has it NU is still recruiting a JUCO big man for next year and I really hope they can close the deal with him because if not the positive steps Northwestern basketball hasn’t will fall backwards simply due to lack of players.

A Few Quick Thoughts/Updates

First of all, congratulations to Mitch Henderson on being named head coach at Princeton. I’m sure it is very exciting for Mitch to get his first job as a head coach and even more exciting that he gets the job where he starred as a point guard. Of course, Mitch’s departure means that NU is in the market for a new assistant coach. The obvious on staff choice would be simply to promote Joe Kennedy from Director of Basketball Operations. However, I’m not sure that with him having only one year in that job if NU will decide to go that director for Joe. The argument is that he was really as an assistant coach for most of his playing career as we all remember him activity coaching from the sidelines, but it might benefit him to get a little more experience before being a paid assistant in the Big Ten. Of course, the popular choice would have to be Jitim Young who I consider Mr. Northwestern Basketball, but I’m not sure Jitim is ready to give up on playing just yet. Still, if I were Bill Carmody I would gauge Jitim’s interest. Another possibility is Nate Pomeday who currently works for Craig Robinson at Oregon State, but who, aside from playing at NU, has Midwestern roots. I’d look at him as a serious candidate.

As Coach Henderson leaves, his last effort for NU was the attempt to recruit center John Cannon. Cannon, a product of North Carolina, is in the final stages of deciding between NU and Georgia for college. He says that Henderson departure doesn’t make a difference, but I’m a little worried he scheduled a return trip to UGA for this weekend. If NU doesn’t sign Cannon this will be yet another spring where NU came close to adding a big man, but couldn’t close the deal.

John Shurna declared for the NBA draft, but didn’t hire an agent. Basically, this pretty much means that he is likely to come back to school, but wants to see what the NBA thinks of him. Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson did the same thing last spring. It does seem to be a good process to go through for college players because they get an honest outside critique of their game from experts. I suspect Shurna will be back in Evanston next fall, but hopefully he’ll learn something between now and then that makes it possible for him to play in the NBA in 2012-2013.

Good News, No News

Well, some good recruiting news recently occurred as most of you are probably aware NU got verbals from Alex Olah and Milos Kostic both from the state of Indiana. Olah is a member of the class of 2012 and Kostic is a member of the class of 2013. Therefore, we will have to wait a bit to see both play, but the news is good in the sense that it shows NU making positive momentum forward with high school players. Ivan Vujic was the primary recruiter for both players which is also nice to see as it is good when all members of the staff clearly are involved with bringing in new talent. Mitch Henderson and Joe Kennedy were reportedly sighted giving class of 2011 recruiting target John Cannon a tour of NU last week, so hopefully Coach Henderson can pull of a recruiting get of his own to match the work done by his colleagues Vujic and Hardy. Unfortunately, we won’t know the results of Henderson’s work for a little while because Cannon plans to visit Georgia first. However, if NU can land the big man from North Carolina it will complete a pretty solid week of NU recruiting.