Inside Information

If you’re a Georgia State basketball fan, it’s about impossible to find information on your team's recruiting on the web. No need to worry, just make The Sports Rant your new home for all things Georgia State Basketball.

I’ve read a few things online in recent weeks about Georgia State recruiting and went seeking confirmation (by harassing anyone inside the Georgia State Sports Arena I can) for what I had read; those readings being, 1) Delano Howard, the spark plug point guard from South Gwinnett High School, may not actually make it to Geoorgia State's campus, and 2) the Panthers have signed two JUCO guards, Antonio Odom and Ron Larris, sophomores from Kilgore Community College (read the article on the Kilgore boys).

First, I found out from a source close to the Howard family that Georgia State’s point guard of the future will not be coming to Atlanta, for he will not be able to qualify academically. Instead of ripping the kid for struggling in school (as I know nothing about his personal life and still hope he can find his way to the concrete campus), I will comment on the academic standards of Georgia State, which certainly have improved greatly since the introduction of the HOPE program years ago. While researching basketball recruiting, I stumbled upon an article on law schools. Georgia State's is currently marked in the second-tier (in the top 100, tied at 97th) in the latest rankings, ahead of many prestigious programs, one being Marquette, and apparently they're not happy about it (read it here). I’m pretty certain it’s not as easy as it used to be to get accepted into State.

Second, a source familiar with the situation believes Larris will be a Panther next year. From my (limited) research, Larris (5’10’’ 180 lbs.) appears to be a decent shooter, hence averaging 80 percent from the charity stripe, but is not a scorer. From some game logs and notes on his high school team, he seems to possess leadership qualities and his greatest strength may be facilitating an offense – he led his high school team to a 12-0 start his senior year, the best opening run in school history, breaking a record from 1922. Also, he was the class 4-AAAA State Player of the Year runner up in Florida in 2003-2004 and was ranked the fifth best point guard in the state.

Odom’s signing was announced in November, in a press release by Charlie Taylor, the human sports almanac for Georgia State Athletics, also announcing the signing of two other JUCO guards (read it here).

That’s all for now. But my rant on the NBA and upcoming NFL draft is coming soon. (One more thing, the Braves thwarted the Mets again today, only days after the fickle New York media passed us off as dead. Count home run number eight for Andruw Jones and note that Timmy Hudson was dealing today.)