April 7 through April 20 has come and gone and the recruiting contact period saw a flurry of action from IU's coaches. Only one new player (as far as we know) was offered a scholarship for the future Hoosiers and that was North Carolina 2013 PG Josh Newkirk. Despite the lack of a flurry of new scholarship offers there was plenty of action to discuss.
From what we can decipher from Twitter and other media reports, Tom Crean and company visited 13 players in 13 days to watch them workout. Gary Harris, being target number 1 for the 2012 class was visited by IU, Purdue, Michigan State and Kentucky all on the same day, so you can imagine that was quite the spectacle. Zak Irvin was also a part of that workout, so many of the big programs also got to see what the 2013 guard was all about.
A few of the other players that were paid a visit were the young 2014 standouts from Southern Indiana, Jaquan Lyle and Ernie Duncan. The two Evansville guards have seen their share of attention as both of them are extremely talented and developed for such a young age. If they continue to grow and develop both of them could be top 20 players come senior year. Luckily for IU, Lyle's tweets back and forth with Etherington and Hollowell hints that he is a HEAVY lean towards IU currently.
Follow the jump for some updates on Zeller and Etherington's adventures in post season All-Star games....
Both Cody Zeller and Austin Etherington are participating in the Derby Festival Basketball Classic that will be played in the oddly named KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. The game will be played tomorrow night at 7 and feature the two IU recruits. I would imagine that the Gold Team should win as Zeller, AE, Ohio State commits Amir Williams, LaQuinton Ross and MSU commit Branden Dawson all are participants on the team. That is absolutely stacked team and I would imagine they could cruise.
What is most exciting about that team is that reports from Twitter is that Zeller and Etherington have been very impressive in their scrimmages so far. At one point this morning Zeller scored 10 straight points against the other bigs on his team in a scrimmage and AE has been a terror on the defensive end. If they can compete that well with players like Williams then I have no doubt that they can make the transfer to the Big Ten, as Williams along with Rosswill probably immediately be two of the 5 spot forces in a conference that will be missing the center presence it traditionally has.
Etherington has also stated his intentions to enter the three point contest that will be going on tonight and Cody Zeller has hinted at either the three point contest or dunk contest. I don't believe any media will be covering this event but check back here or at our fellow IU basketball enthusiasts, InsideTheHall.com to discover the results of their few days of preparation.