ESPN Recruiting Nation Basketball

ESPN 60 small forward Trevon Bluiett (Indianapolis/Park Tudor) is playing with a ton of confidence on the travel team circuit. It makes sense that he would be out there getting things done in the spring because he said playing AAU and travel ball is the most rewarding thing he’s done in basketball.

“Nothing gets better than this, and it’s more competition here than in school ball,” Bluiett said. “If I wasn’t playing travel ball, I wouldn’t be the player I am now.”

The player he is now is a mixture of guard and forward wrapped in a strong, college-ready body. He used to just be a shooter, but now he’s doing a little bit of everything -- and just in time because here come the scholarship offers.

Bluiett is a priority recruit for Butler, Michigan, Indiana, Purdue, DePaul and Cincinnati. Notre Dame is also calling to get back into the mix. When that phone rings from Brad Stevens or Butler assistant Michael Lewis, Bluiett is picking up quickly these days. Ditto for calls from Michigan assistant LaVall Jordan, who, by the way, is a Butler graduate. As a result, there are solid odds that a Butler man gets to coach this kid.

Then again, Bluiett credits travel ball with helping him see that the world is a little bigger than a car ride to college. “Being away from home all the time, that already helps you with college,” he said. “That way distance won’t be a factor.”

What will be a factor are relationships. And simply by the terminology Bluiett uses to describe those relationships, you can tell he’s serious. “The right school has the player-coach relationship, and I’d say that player-player relationship as well,” Bluiett added.

Bluiett’s recruitment will definitely be one to watch. Here are some more news and notes and updated offer lists from the basketball recruiting world:

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The beauty of the spring evaluation period is the guys who come out of nowhere and ascend up the charts. If the first two sessions of the Nike EYBL circuit are any indication, the spring has been very good to 2014 combo guard Sandy Cohen (Green Bay, Wis./Seymour).

He’s averaging nine points and four rebounds per game and making 31 percent of his 3-pointers while running the show for the Wisconsin Playground Warriors. He hasn’t been perfect (24 assists and 25 turnovers), but he’s done enough to warrant major attention.

Coming into the spring, it was North Dakota, Green Bay and Milwaukee chasing him. After the first EYBL session two weeks ago in Los Angeles, La Salle and George Washington offered. After the second EYBL session in Hampton, Va., last weekend, he has fielded calls from Minnesota, Auburn, Clemson and UCLA.

“I had a few good games and people liked the way I could handle the ball and I can shoot,” Cohen said. “I’m trying to go high-major, that’s my dream.”

The kid from Green Bay Packers country is in the big time now, and he likes what he sees.

“This is nothing like I’ve ever seen before,” Cohen said. “This is high-level basketball. Where I’m from it’s nothing like this. We don’t get full-court pressure, nothing like that.”

Here are some other recruiting updates on EYBL stock risers:

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We’re smack in the middle of the spring travel team evaluation period. While the weekend warriors pack up and head to the hot spots for travel team events, college coaches hop on private planes to see the elite players.

Wednesday was the final day programs could conduct in-home visits with underclassmen. So we tracked down some of the big-time college coaches and found out what they were up to on the final day of the in-home visitation period.

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Chris Paul’s AAU team, CP3, is in Los Angeles this weekend for the Nike EYBL competition. To say Paul is involved with his team doesn’t do his commitment justice. He goes to games, gets involved in the kids’ lives and mentors the players. We need more guys like him in AAU.

Paul invited his team to his home in L.A. and planned on taking the players to an L.A. Clippers practice. But according to Paul, the NBA said no dice and told him there would be consequences if he did this.

CP called on Thursday and wasn’t in a good mood. He was disappointed. His point was that he just wanted to give back and help kids and he had a unique opportunity for them to see an NBA practice and see the commitment level of a playoff team.

A lot of NBA players sponsor AAU teams and couldn’t tell you one guy on the roster. CP is the opposite. He’ll call once or twice during the year and ask how his guys are playing in high school. He’ll also check if he needs to call one of them to either set them straight or offer tips.

We need NBA players committed to the next generation of recruits. CP gets it. Too bad the NBA, and in some cases the NCAA, doesn’t. Simply put, guys like Paul are the type we want recruits to have access to.

Here’s a look at more news and notes from the basketball recruiting world.

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It’s a busy time in basketball recruiting, with the major postseason events bringing a close to the 2012-13 high school season, the upcoming spring signing period (April 17-May 15) finishing out Class of 2013 recruiting and the start of the AAU season beginning a whole new cycle of recruiting.

So with all that going on, I had to dust off the notebooks from last week’s McDonald’s All American Game and National High School Invitational and combine them with a steady diet of what’s happening this week. College coaches are also now back on the road making stops at schools as they gear toward the last two weekends of April, which are prime evaluation opportunities on the travel team circuit.

Here’s a collection of news and notes from the world of basketball recruiting.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes a look at Roy Williams visiting a top-10 junior in Minnesota, Kentucky visiting No. 1 prospect Andrew Wiggins, UNLV’s Baltimore pipeline and much more basketball recruiting news.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes a look at how Julius Randle committing to Kentucky might impact Andrew Wiggins, an ESPN 100 guard who might be close to deciding, Michigan State’s latest pledge and much more basketball recruiting news.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes a look at three elite recruits who’ll make their college decisions known in the next two weeks, why Michigan’s recruiting strategy works so well for the Wolverines, when Miami is likely to capitalize on this season’s success and much more basketball recruiting news.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes the latest on UNC’s chances with Andrew Wiggins, which college coach watched Julius Randle most recently, a 7-foot freshman from North Carolina and much more basketball recruiting news.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes a thought on how to clean up early commitments and frivolous scholarship offers, updates on ESPN 60 juniors Trey Lyles, Justise Winslow, Devin Booker and Dwayne Morgan, and much more recruiting news.

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In this week's Friday notebook, two prospects join an exclusive group of high school basketball players, three ESPN 60 stars plot to play together in college and the basketball community suffers a heartbreaking loss.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes a continuation of the Aaron Gordon/Blake Griffin comparison, how Kentucky’s recruiting class made history again, which underclassmen visited Duke and Michigan State and much more recruiting news.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes a look at LSU signee Jarrell Martin’s dominant senior season, how LSU may have opened a pipeline to Australia, the latest word on best-available point guard Rysheed Jordan and a look back at re-ranking the top five in the Class of 2012.

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This week’s Friday notebook includes an introduction to one of the nation’s most impressive freshmen, a look at Indiana’s big recruiting weekend, why John Calipari’s words resonated with the nation’s No. 2 junior, Illinois putting in work on the recruiting trail and much more.

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