Florida Man: A FutureCast for the Zags, an unsigned senior and more
Each week, Rivals national basketball analyst and very own Florida Man, Rob Cassidy, takes readers around the basketball and hoops recruiting world, touching on news, notes and developments.This week, he predicts Gonzaga will land one of the top prospects in America, takes a look at an unsigned senior on the rise and wonders if enough is being done to protect the NCAA Tournament.
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2021 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team | Position
2022 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team | Position
2023 Rankings: Top 30
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FUTURECAST OF THE WEEK: Hunter Sallis to Gonzaga
Earlier this week, I ranked the contenders to land the commitment of five-star guard Hunter Sallis and put Gonzaga at the top of the list. I figured I might as well make things official and put in a FutureCast for the Zags, which I expect to beat out Kentucky, North Carolina and others when Sillas makes things official on March 26.
It’s safe to say Sillas’ recruitment has the pandemics’ fingerprints all over it. Kentucky was long considered the leader to land him but Gonzaga began to emerge as it became clear that five-star wouldn't be permitted to make any additional official visits other than the one he took to Spokane back in January of 2020. If the Zags do, in fact, land his letter of intent, the COVID-19 dead period should be credited with at least a small assist.
STOCK UP - Brandin Podziemski
Few are having better senior seasons than Wisconsin-based Brandin Podziemski, who has been on a scoring binge to the tune of a 30-PPG average. And while the competition level isn’t what it might be in some other areas of the country, the tape is impressive and features the 6-foot-6 guard battling double teams on most occasions.
Podziemski went for 50 points, 11 rebounds and six assists in a double-overtime game and is certainly making his case to slide into the thick of the Rivals150 when the list updates for the final time following the season. The three-star guard is certainly playing like a four-star prospect as of late and is making an impression on all that watch him play.
A left-handed prospect that can shoot it from the outside, Podziemski is high on schools such as Kentucky, Kansas and Arizona State.
TAKE OF THE WEEK - Just because you can play, doesn't mean you should
Boston College was all set to host Florida State on Tuesday night and, according to head coach Jim Christian, the Eagles were going to do so despite having just four scholarship players available due to COVID-19 protocols.
That’s right, 10-3 Florida State, a team with Final Four aspirations, was going to be forced to fly to Boston in a pandemic to take on a 3-10 team set to roll out the social chair of some frat for big minutes at the two spot.The game was eventually cancelled because Florida State was forced to shut down basketball activities the day before tipoff. Still, had that not taken place, the No. 20 Seminoles would have been forced to risk a February shutdown by flying up the coast to blow out a wounded and inferior foe.
So while I understand the game wasn’t played, this is about the larger point. Calling situations like this high-risk, low-reward is understating things. As we inch closer to the NCAA Tournament, COVID-19 is still shutting down programs daily. I understand the need to play the games on the schedule for the sake of the conference standings, but it’s probably time to start prioritizing the postseason and the programs that will comprise it.
Imagine cancelling even a single NCAA Tournament game because a top seed (or any seed for that matter) got itself into a coronavirus situation at a conference tournament or traveling back from one. Does anyone want to see a lottery pick miss a 4-11 game because of contact tracing? I’m not saying call off the remainder of the regular season, but maybe we do away with the idea of last-place teams playing games with a handful of scholarship athletes.
PARTING THOUGHT: LeBron James vs. some sorority chapter's adviser is the NBA's off-court story of the week
Forget the war of words and the fact that this woman’s husband looks like the kind of dude that has a Punisher sticker on the back of his truck. How did this happen in the first place? The same league that was so concerned with player safety that it turned Disney World into a basketball bubble less than a year ago is now letting maskless Real Housewives lookalikes sit courtside at games?
Things sure have changed here on Walton’s Mountain.