SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Spencer Gloger Will Sign A
Letter Of Intent With UCLA--(May 7, 1999)

We know that Tracy Pierson over at PacWestHoops will be happy that he talked to Spencer Gloger (6'-6" Sr. SG/SF) before we did.  So we did the next best thing:  We called his dad, John Gloger, and had a long chat with him about Spencer's commitment to play for the UCLA Bruins.  And actually, we would have called Spencer, but his dad thought it would be a good idea for us not to disturb Spencer (who was in sick in bed), at least not until after the weekend is over, because he was sleeping and trying to get some rest,  with a raging sore throat , evidently just one of the symptons from a case of mononucleosis.

And while we've got no direct quotes from Spencer, we can confirm that Spencer Gloger, from Santa Margarita High in Rancho Santa Margarita in Orange County, will in fact be a Bruin next season. We know this because the half of the family (Spencer's dad) who has to sign the National Letter of Intent consenting to have Spencer attend UCLA has told us he will.

According to John, Spencer was offered a scholarship by Coach Lavin this past Tuesday night, and he decided to accept the offer.  Spencer will turn down offers from Princeton and Oregon.  He took an unofficial visit to Pepperdine last fall, and was also considering taking a visit to St. Louis, largely because Lorenzo Romar had been recruiting him.  Spencer's older brother Brad, is on the team at Columbia University, so there was some sentiment in the Gloger family, according to his dad,  that he should go Ivy, but the impression we were left with after talking to John was that Oregon was also more than just a backup offer to Princeton, and that until this past week when UCLA got seriously involved, it was going to be between the East Coast (Princeton) and West Coast (Oregon). St. Louis was probably a long-shot, but still on the horizon.

According to John Gloger, UCLA has not yet sent Spencer the National Letter of Intent papers, but the school has told the family that the papers will be sent as soon as Spencer is academically cleared, which, according to Spencer's dad, John Gloger, Esq., (yeah, John's an attorney too), "is pretty much a sure thing, a ministerial act."   And we don't doubt that for a minute because Spencer was, after all, offered admittance to Princeton, which isn't exactly a school for the poorly-schooled (Princeton, like the rest of the Ivy League, doesn't "recruit" like the rest of the NCAA D-I schools, and they don't offer "athletic scholarships"; athletes have to meet the same rigorous academic requirements as the rest of the Mensa-enrollees) so qualifying from an academic point of view is sort of a non-issue, a mere formality.  John told us that Spencer expects to have the NLOI papers in hand by this weekend or early next week, and he will then sign them and return them to UCLA sometime during the week.  The timing is a bit fuzzy, but we'd guess that the papers will be to Spencer no later than Monday. 

Because NCAA schools can only comment on prospective players when they receive the NLOI in hand, signed and delivered, don't expect any official confirmation on this until sometime next week from UCLA.  But take our word for it, unless something totally unforeseen happens, Spencer Gloger will be committed to be a Bruin by this time next week.

Spencer was the Orange County Player of the Year this season, averaging close to 24 points per game, and the year before he was a member of Santa Margarita's State Championship team which won the title in Division II.   According to several reports floating around the internet (on Jim Downs' UCLA site, on the message board at PacWestHoops, and the board at Tracy Pierson's other site, SuperBruin) the UCLA coaches have reportedly only seen Spencer play on tape, which seems hard to believe, but hey, it's the rumor that's floating around. We didn't see any of the UCLA coaches at the Dada game (and it wouldn't have been hard to spot them because there was lots of  room in the house) but they were permitted to attend because the event was at Pauley Pavilion, and under several sources tell us that NCAA regs permit coaches to attend such events at their home site.  We just can't imagine UCLA, which has a pretty tough reputation to protect, and some of the most demanding fans in the country (most of whom would like nothing better than to see the Wizard come down from his perch behind the bench in the stands, and tell Lavin to "step aside son" and take over coaching the team)  committing a scholarship to a player without having seen him live and in the flesh, but hey, anything's possible.  It's more likely that the UCLA coaches   followed him discretely during the high school season, and we're pretty sure they saw him last summer in Las Vegas at the Big Time Tournament, where Spencer played with his Santa Margarita team. And besides, Spencer told Tracy Pierson in his interview, that the UCLA coaches had watched him play in a couple of All-Star games, so maybe he know from whence he speaks, because he has, after all, been the one communicating directly with Lavin on this subject.

So what kind of a player is he?  We've seen him play several times, most recently at the Dada All-Star game, and Spencer is a great outside shooter, sort of a 2-3 combination wing-guard, small-forward type player, and at least for the first year or two, until he gets a little bulk put on and a bit stronger, he'll probably play behind JaRon Rush a good deal, but he's an excellent athlete and a great shooter with good skills, a smart player who knows the game, and he will definitely add some depth as a potential shooting threat, which is something UCLA has really lacked all year.  They've had plenty of guys who can bring the ball up and distribute it (Baron, Earl, Moose), and they've had some pretty good depth inside at the basket (Moiso, Gadzuric) and good slashing type guards and wings (JaRon, Rico, Sean, Todd and Ray Young) but they really haven't, at least this past season, had much depth at shooting from the outside certainly due to Billy Knight's injury, and Brandon Loyd's tentativeness (is that even a word?) to shoot the ball this season. So Spencer begins to fill a void that UCLA has sort of been unable to fill for the past few seasons.

Spencer's father told us that "The decision was one which created much conflict and divisiveness in the family.  We had one contingent which wanted him to be at Princeton, another at Oregon, and then when UCLA came into the picture, well, everything just changed. It was a pretty easy decision, from the standpoint of the academics and the quality and level of play at UCLA. I'm really very pleased for Spencer and consider our family lucky that we'll be able to continue to watch his games locally."

"You know, I used to hear about all of these athletes being offered scholarships, and I would think 'What's so difficult? Pick a school, make a decision and move on.' But then when it happens to you, and it hits home that you've got multiple offers from quality programs and excellent institutions, well, it's a very difficult position," John Gloger told us.  "I'm very proud of Spencer because I think he's made an excellent decision, and he's handled the tug-of-war that's existed in our family very well."

Congratulations to UCLA on getting a solid shooter who actually wants to come to play for coach Lavin and be a Bruin.  And congratulations to Spencer on shortly becoming a part of a great tradition. 

Now if only Baron stays. . . .

 
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