Competition for Harrison going to be tough

The BYU Cougars have their work cut out for them if they hope to land top recruit Demarcus Harrison, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard from South Carolina. Harrison, who is LDS, made an official visit to BYU’s campus last weekend, toured campus, met some players and attended the BYU-Washington football game. This weekend he’s visiting Clemson, and next weekend he’ll be at Florida State -ironically – when BYU is town to take on the Seminoles. Harrison also plans to visit Marquette. He has offers from most schools in the ACC. I’m not sure if being first on his official visit list is a good thing for BYU or not. The Cougar coaches will also make a visit to Harrison’s home later this month. Reportedly, Harrison was impressed with BYU’s program and campus on his trip to Provo. However, he’s going to get a lot of pressure from other schools over the next few weeks. Most feel the two leading contenders for Harrison’s services are BYU (the LDS connection) and Clemson, his home-state school.
Here’s a link to Harrison’s highlight video:
HarrisonHighlights
Today, BYU’s coaches are up in Mill Creek, Wash. making an official in-home visit to 6-foot-1 guard Brett Kingma, who they have been targeting for two years now. Kingma has official visits to Oregon and Arizona State, and will likely visit BYU’s campus next month. Observers feel BYU, Washington, Gonzaga and Oregon are on top of Kingma’s list.
Another future BYU recruit, Jabari Parker, a 6-foot-7 forward who is only a sophomore at Simeon High in Chicago, is going to be an even tougher get for the Cougars. Most scouting officials say Parker is one of the 10 best players his age in the entire country, and there’s not a program from the Big 10, Big East or ACC that doesn’t want him. Parker, who is LDS, is already being projected as a future NBA lottery pick.
Other BYU basketball news: The Cougars have added the final game to their 2010-11 schedule by booking Fresno Pacific for Jan. 1 at the Marriott Center. The Cougars also know their first opponent in the South Padre Island Invitational. They’ll play South Florida the day after Thanksgiving, and then on that Saturday (the same day as the BYU-Utah football game) they’ll play either Texas Tech or St. Mary’s.
I blogged last week about former assistant John Wardenburg being a candidate for the open assistant job at BYU-Hawaii. I’ve been told by a reliable source that the job Wardenburg might get is “much larger” than that. Another source believes Wardenburg could end up as the athletic director at BYU-Hawaii. I don’t think he’ll get the head job over there, because I don’t think current head coach/AD Ken Wagner is going anywhere. But I would be surprised to see Wagner give up his AD duties.