Is Brad Beal the best basketball prospect in the country?

While the experts are debating among themselves about Michael Gilchrist (6-7, 190, Somerdale, NJ St. Patrick's), Austin Rivers (6-4, 190, Winter Park, FL), Marquis Teague (6-2, 175, Indianapolis, IN Pike) and Quincy Miller (6-10, 200, High Point, NC Westchester Academy), Florida commitment Bradley Beal (6-4, 190, St. Louis, MO Chaminade Prep) is making a subtle statement that he belongs in the conversation that answers the question who is the top high school senior in the country? Beal is averaging 18.3 points per game for the USA team that has moved into the semifinals of the FIBA World 17-and-Under Championships in Hamburg, Germany but it was his Friday performance against Australia that had everybody buzzing. Beal knocked down 7-9 on his three-point shots as the USA turned what was expected to be their toughest game to date into a 105-70 rout. For the tournament, Brad is hitting 48.9 percent (22-45) on his three-pointers.

Beal was always considered an elite shooter but this summer he's shown all the dimensions of his game. He's proven he is a good enough ball handler and distributor to play the point, can rebound with the big guys and play pit bull, shut down defense even when asked to go head to head with opponents who are 3-4 inches taller. The shooting has always drawn a crowd. The other aspects of his game are starting to convince folks that he might just have the best overall game of any prospect in the country.

What makes Brad so special is that he's never lost sight of the things that are important in life. He's a God first, family second kid who has never been full of himself, a straight A student in the classroom who is popular with teammates and friends because he has this habit of always putting them first. You wonder why he's the unparalleled leader on the USA team in Germany? That's it right there.

I think he's the most important recruit Billy Donovan has landed since Mike Miller.

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So Southern Cal athletic director Mike Garrett had to send a letter of apology to Florida AD Jeremy Foley this week because of those erroneous accusations by USC freshman Dillon Baxter, who claimed that Florida coaches contacted him within hours after the NCAA dropped the hammer on the Trojans. The apology letter raises two very serious questions in my mind: (1) Why isn't Lane Kiffin being questioned for his part in this; and (2) how is it that Mike Garrett still has a job?


Personally, I don't think Dillon Baxter is smart enough to accuse Florida, Alabama and several other schools of contacting him illegally. Having spent a year listening to the lies and pompous allegations of Lane Kiffin when he was at Tennessee, I have no doubt that the Baxter allegations were a plot conceived by Kiffin, who has convinced himself that he can say or do anything he wants without consequences. Remember, this is the same Lane Kiffin who made Al Davis seem sane and that takes some doing. Al Davis called Lane a pathological liar. After the year he spent at Tennessee, I'm convinced Al was onto something. 

The fact that the University of Southern California hasn't fired Mike Garrett tells me that the school thinks it operates under a separate set of rules from the rest of the schools that make up the NCAA. I find it amazing that USC is appealing the NCAA sanctions. The school administrators should be down on their knees thanking the good Lord that the NCAA didn't serve up the death penalty and eliminate both the football and basketball programs for two or three years as punishment for their involvement with Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo. 

I remain convinced that Bush and Mayo aren't the only ones who took money and ran the rules into the ground at USC. I believe they are simply the two most visible athletes and because of their high profile, they forced the NCAA to act. The fact that Mike Garrett, who was the overseer while all these shenanigans took place, is still employed tells me the NCAA should have offered up harsher penalties. 

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When I see what happened at Southern Cal, I'm really thankful that Jeremy Foley is Florida's athletic director. Since Foley became the AD in 1992, Florida is the only athletic program in the Southeastern Conference that hasn't had at least one team hit with NCAA sanctions. Just since Foley has been the AD, Alabama has taken an NCAA hit three times for football and once for basketball. Even Vanderbilt has had probation (women's basketball). 

I've been saying for years that Foley is the best in the country when it comes to bottom line and for insisting that every one of his coaches play within the framework of the rules. Florida's second place finish in the Director's Cup this year offers up the perfect example of how you can play by the rules and still win championships. 

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We're a couple of weeks away from Friday Night Lights, which means get ready for a rash of football commitments. I hear through a few well-placed sources that the Gators have as many as six kids who haven't gone public with their commitments to Urban Meyer and that they're saving them for the days that follow FNL.

When Urban Meyer conceived the Friday Night Lights concept in the summer of 2005, I remember how the fine folks at the Harvard of the Panhandle ridiculed him and said it was a rather dumb idea by a coach who was going to get his comeuppance in the Southeastern Conference. Well, in the five years since, Urban Meyer has turned Florida into the ultimate recruiting machine and the Gators have won two national championships and produced a Heisman Trophy winner. The Seminoles? They've been to the Emerald Nuts Bowl twice, have had 14 wins stripped from their football program, forcefully retired their icon of a head coach and they've gotten lack of institutional control slapped on their athletic program because of an academic cheating scandal that had its roots in the football program. 

Oh, and there is that little matter of imitation is the greatest form of flattery. The Seminoles have tried to copy Friday Night Lights with their own "Seminole Showcase" without a whole lot of success. Meanwhile, Friday Night Lights has become the nation's premier one-night camp that nearly every uncommitted player in the country wants to attend.

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I'm off to Augusta today for the Nike Peach Jam. It's a chance to watch the best basketball prospects in the country and an opportunity to hang around with the best coaches in college basketball. I'll be blogging daily, offering up observations of the players and comments from the coaches.