Hoosier Recruits Robinson, Davis and Lyles Excel Over the Weekend

Three IU commits really showed what they had to offer to the world of college basketball over this past long weekend. Starting on Thursday at the NBPA Top 100 camp, 2013 commit Stanford Robinson, had a chance to show off his skillset to a large contingency of national media and scouts. The event went through Saturday and included some of the nation’s top talent from the 2013 and 2014 classes. Basically if you excelled in this camp then you’ve proven capable to be a big time player on a national scale. This is an event where a recruit’s national ranking could be made or broken.

It appears that Stanford Robinson helped make his case. The national guys all had very positive things to say about Robinson and the college recruiting twittersphere went IU-centric on Friday night when Robinson exploded for a camp high 24 points. Tim McCormick of ESPN called the performance “dominant” on Twitter. Jeff Borzello of CBS Sports, Eric Bossi head analyst for Rivals, Jerry Meyer former head analyst of Rivals and recent addition to 247sports, and Paul Biancardi of ESPN all had singled out Robinson for praise. That is usually a good sign for things to come. If you weren’t sold on Robinson initially, perhaps his ranking in the new updates coming around July will sway you.

On the other end of the world (Southern Hemisphere) 2014 PF Trey Lyles competed with the Canada Under 18 National Team in qualifying for the FIBA World Championships. Lyles, who was originally born in Canada but has lived in the US the majority of his young life had the option to compete for the United States or Canada on a national scale. In the end he chose to play with another top prospect in Andrew Wiggins for the Canadians. Though the Americans lost one hell of a player it so far seems like a good choice for Indy Tech’s Lyles.

Lyles also showed off in dominating fashion in wins over Puerto Rico and Colombia. In the first game Lyles enforced his will on the Puerto Ricans by putting up 17 points and 16 rebounds. The most impressive part is that he did so in only twenty minutes of play and as the youngest player on the court. In the second game of the weekend Lyles improved upon the first performance. Against Colombia Lyles threw up another 17 points but improved his rebounding total to 19 for the game. That brought his weekend and two game average to 17 points and 17.5 rebounds a game. If those numbers don’t make you drool then I’m not sure you understand the game of basketball.

Lyles has shown he can play at a high level against top flight talent. His current top 10 national ranking may even be a bit conservative. At a self-reported 6’10” he can handle the ball like a shooting guard, play post like a power forward but shoot like a small forward. His versatility and fundamental soundness is something that a Tom Crean offense could use to abuse the Big Ten. He’s probably capable of logging significant minutes at the college level as a high school junior. What Hoosiers fans need to root for more than anything is for the NBA to force two years of college before going pro.

As a whole it was an incredibly successful weekend for Indiana commits and recruiting. Devin Davis led the Indiana All-Stars with 24 points/15 rebounds and 13 points/13 rebounds in a split with Kentucky’s All-Stars. He has really been coming along all summer as he has achieved a better overall health level. Look for him to make a push for Indiana Mr. Basketball this coming fall. He certainly has the motor to do so and if he can comfortably average a double-double against some of the toughest competition in the state I don’t know how you keep it from him.

Unfortunately as Davis gets healthy Collin Hartman continues to struggle with his health. The guy just cannot catch a break. He put up 7 points and solid defense in the first game on Friday but did not play in the second game on Saturday. He then sent out a tweet on Sunday that he was on crutches for the day. Hopefully it isn’t serious but after injury issues last year, concussion symptoms this spring and now the crutches you got to think the basketball gods are going to cut him a break at some point.

The final recruiting tidbit of the weekend is that Indiana is a assumed strong leader for the services of 2013 top 15 big man BJ Anya. Jody Demling of the Louisville Courier-Journal who was at the NBPA camp thinks after talking with Anya that Stanford Robinson’s commit to IU will be a factor in his recruitment. Others are also reporting very positive news for IU in this position. It should be an interesting last few months as there aren’t very many quality big men in the 2013 class and the whole nation is competing for his services.