Keeping Tabs On The Future

PJS Note: Periodically over the remainder of the basketball season I will post updates of Tubby Smith's incoming five-man 2008 class. The group has been ranked as high as 10th nationally and it is part of the hopefully golden future of Minnesota basketball.

Devron Bostick: The junior college guard led his Southwestern Illinois College Blue Storm on a 12-point second half comeback last Wednesday, making a Blake Hoffarber-like five three pointers down the stretch to finish with 25 points. Bostick scored just 10 points in a Saturday matinee. Bostick's Blue Storm are 14-1, but in that lone loss, Bostick played an unfortunate roll. From this Jan. 6 Belleview News Democrat article: "Tied at 70, SWIC (12-1) had a chance to take the lead with 20 seconds, left but sophomore Devron Bostick missed two free throws."

Devoe Joseph: Pickings are slim in terms of clips for Joseph's highlights. But this Windsor Star feature on Joseph from December is highly encouraging. After touting Devoe's potential, the paper quotes a coach who is preparing to play his Pickering Trojans.

St. Anne coach Larry Loebach joked he'll play a couple of extra defenders and hope the refs don't notice.

"We are also having a special school mass with our team as the main theme. Hopefully, that will help us as well," he said.

Seriously, Loebach said the Saints' Mackenzie Devin gets the dubious honour of shadowing Joseph whenever his team is not employing a matchup zone.

Colton Iverson: The 6'8"-6'10" (it varies depending on who you read) senior from Yankton, SD had a double-double during a victory this weekend over a highly ranked (by South Dakota standards) Brandon Valley team. This article tells us Iverson had 19 points and 14 rebounds. And this piece, covering the same game, tells us Iverson had 19 points, 11 reboudns and five blocks. Either way, from tracking Iverson at during the course of the year, this performance last weekend seems to be his best of the year. Having not seen the Bucks play, I get the sense that Iverson is a one-man show. His Yankton high school team is, as of Saturday, 4-4.

Paul Carter: After missing a handful of games due to injury, Missouri State University-West Plains freshman Paul Carter has seen his playing time go up and down. In his last four games (all boxscores are available via this link) Carter has played 16, 17, 17 and 30 minutes. There is no word on why his playing time has dwindled. In his most recent outing, Carter put up 11 points, grabbed seven rebounds, blocked two shots and shot 4-5 from the free throw line and 1-2 from three point land. Aside from the injury, Carter's floor time seems to be limited at times by a tendency to get himself in foul trouble. Despite missing four games, Carter easily leads the Grizzlies with 41 personal fouls. On the brigher side, Carter also easily leads the Grizzlies in reounding. Also standing out from this season stat sheet is his relatively low shooting percentage (38 percent) and three point percentage (28 percent)

And finally, the Pioneer Press' Charley Walters tells us that Tubby Smith has no plans to redshirt Sampson or Iverson. This should have been obvious because of the pending graudations of Dan Coleman and Spencer Tollackson. That leaves the Gophers with only two returning big men in Damian Johnson and Jonathan Williams.

** I'll have more on these four youngsters and RSIII in weeks to come.