SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Holy Cross Gets Help From Chicago;
Gloger & Shipp Visit Pepperdine--(Oct. 20, 1998)

What do Holy Cross, Spencer Gloger, Joe Shipp, Chicago Whitney Young High School, and Pepperdine University all have in common? 

A couple of things evidently.  Stay with us here. This is a tenuous thread, but it's a thread nonetheless.

Holy Cross is a small college on the east coast, located in Worcester, Massachussetts,  which plays in the Patriot Conference against schools like Army, Bucknell Colgate, Lafayette, Lehigh, and Navy.  It's got several players from SoCal on the roster this year, including Thomas Nelson (5'-10" Sr. G) from Los Angeles who attended prep school at Phillips Academy, Tony Gutierrez (6'-4" Jr. G) from University of San Diego High School in San Diego, and Dekker McKeever (6'-7" Fr. F) from Santa Margarita, last year's Division II State Champions. 

Well, yesterday, we got an e-mail from Mike Naidtich, the coach at Chicago Whitney Young High School, which last year produced Dennis Gates (Cal--still trying to qualify), and Quentin Richardson (De Paul), and Mike wanted us know that Kristopher Clemmons (6'-6" Sr. F) from Chicago Whitney Young, has given a verbal committment to Holy Cross for next year.

Who else is being recruited by Holy Cross?

None other than (as we reported earlier on October 3 ) current Santa Margarita player Spencer Gloger (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF).  Spencer is reportedly also looking at Penn, Princeton, USD, Richmond, Pepperdine, USF, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Cal Poly SLO.

And here's the Pepperdine connection: Spencer will reportedly take an unofficial visit to Malibu this weekend, according to Frank Burlison of the Orange County Register.

And as long as we're segueing into Pepperdine, here's some additional stuff: Burlison also notes (and we can confirm because we were there) Joe Shipp (6'-5' Sr. F) from LA Fairfax was seen in the gym last weekend at Midnight Madness, and he's still (at least according to Frank) considering the Waves, Syracuse and Vanderbilt.

We were at Midnight Madness at the Pepperdine campus last weekend, and we had a chance to talk briefly with coach Romar, and some of the assistants, including new assistant coach Scott Garson, and our friends David and Dana Pump, who are getting ready to have their West College All-Star team take on Pepperdine in the pre-season and were out "scouting."  From what we saw, it looks like Pepperdine will be everything most of the pundits are predicting, and then some, and we'd have to believe that they will be one of the favorites to take the WCC.  Jelani Gardner never looked better, and he's in great shape, slamming and jamming at will during the 15 minute scrimmage prior to the shooting contests.  Another up-and-coming star for Pepperdine, at least from what we saw, will be Robert Fomby, who can really jam; and Fomby sure doesn't look like he's 6'-1"; at least not when he's standing next to David Lalazarian (6'-7" Jr. F) or Cedric Suitt (6'-11" So. C).  Fomby is just everywhere on the floor, is quick and should provide some excellent fast break offense.  Lalazarian, who red-shirted last season was very impressive, strong and powerful.  Suitt also looked great, at least as great as one can look playing flat out hoops at 1:00 a.m. on a Friday night after a full week of classes.

Midnight Madness was a blast.  Next year though, print up some more t-shirts guys. There just weren't enough to go around.

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