Speculation on Branden Dawson.....

[duanewade]

I have no information but am purely speculating.  Yesterday I watched his video and thought it was odd that he would not make his decision by fall but instead wait till spring 2011.  Since he is so highly regarded he has been recruited hard for well over a year already and has offers from every program imaginable and has visited most of them by now as well.....You think he would be sick to death of the recruiting process and has to know where he wants to go by now.  Unless:

1) He has eliminated IU and Purdue and doesn't want to announce that before his senior year season and have to deal with all the jeers from all the IU and Purdue fans that will attend his games.  He knows if he waits till spring and chooses Marquette, Georgetown, MSU or UCLA then it will be less of headache to deal with.

2) Of course many of these 5 star recruits don't come from Niceville and/or have two bread winners in the house and have handlers who might want to parlay the process to get financial favors while they still have leverage by floating their potential commitment out there.  I hope this is not the reason but have heard enough rumors over the years to think this crooked behavior/cheating still happens as the NCAA really isn't equipped to monitor under the table payments.  However the six remaining programs don't have shady reputations so if that was his motivation he probably wouldn't have the 6 teams remaining that he does.

3) He might want to go to Marquette or Georgetown but wants to see how the Big Ten / Big East potential realignment plays out before he makes his decision.

4) He just might want to be a kid and take as many free official trips as possible to have fun and see more of the country before making his decision.

Hopefully either 1 or 3 is his reasoning which bode well for Marquette.  

[Plaque Lives Matter!]

Eh I think its only speculation at this point, I would give a recruit like this until at least december to give off at least a little vibe where he is leaning towards. But then again, I have been wrong about NCAAB recruiting before...many times. God I love this game.

[bilsu]

He probably does not want to worry about a coach leaving. I would think spring signings are going to become more common.

[duanewade]

BTW....I've said this before but Dawson is more of a rebounding and scoring 3 which is much more of a need than Wayne Blackshear a 2 who we missed on.  I think Jumail Jones will be a great 3 for us also but he is more of an outside shooter and could play the 2.....Blue/Coudagan, Blue/Jones/DJO and Dawson/Jones could man the 123....let the best players play regardless of position....Reggie Smith & DJ Newbill I'm not counting out either....the cream will rise to the top as far as who gets minutes and plays the best overall on both ends of the court. 

If Buzz gets either Dawson or Tokoto that would be a huge statement across the basketball world....of course we'll take both of them if they want to come but we only need one of the two unless Dawson is good enough to go to the NBA after one year then we'll need Tokoto to take his place for his one year . 

I honestly think if the Big East doesn't get gutted by the Little 11 that the sky is the limit in where Buzz will take us as far as fielding a basketball team as talented as anyone in the country that also plays a fun, fast, hard and intense style of basketball.  I loved watching the three amigos up to the UConn game their senior year as we got so many easy buckets with the overall team speed we had but when James went down we were still good but not special.  We will be special like that again if the pieces I spelled out above fall into place.