Arizona picked up arguably the best high school guard in the country Tuesday, as Brandon Jennings gave a commitment to coach Lute Olson for the 2008-09 season.

Jennings, a 6-foot-1, 170-pound junior guard, played in the Arizona Cactus Classic at McKale Center over the weekend, and decided to stay and make an unofficial visit to the school.

“All the top guards in the league (NBA) came out of Arizona,’’ said
Jennings, who is rated as the No. 1 player in the country by Hoopscooponline.com.

“There’s Mike Bibby, Jason Terry, Gilbert Arenas. Those guys came out of there and are doing really well. They get them ready for the league (NBA).”

In the recent tournament, he averaged 28.4 points in leading Belmont Shore to the championship game against the New York Gauchos.

He attended Dominguez High in Compton, Calif., before transferring to Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va.

Jennings originally committed to USC, but recently re-opened the recruiting process. Arizona won out over Connecticut. Jennings had also considered Kansas and Kentucky.

He’s rated No. 12 by Rivals.com and No. 7 by Scout.com. Scout.com has him as the top-rated point guard. Last summer, USA TODAY rated him as the fifth best performer at the annual ABCD Camp despite being just a sophomore.

Scout.com’s Dave Telep called Jennings commitment to UA, “bigtime.’’

“He’s a winner,’’ Telep said. “You’d like to judge a point guard by their
resume and Brandon Jennings is a winner.”

In an interview over the weekend, Jennings said he didn’t think he’d commit to a school until July.

“After seeing everything … the campus and meeting everyone and playing in pickup games with the guys, I just enjoyed everything,’’ he said. “I
just thought that if this is something I really want to do, I might as well do it and get it done with.’’

Check back later for more coverage of Jennings’ commitment.

Lute still a recruiting force

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Basketball, High School, Sports-Basketball, Sports-Basketball-High School, Steve Rivera. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.