Morningstar visits pair of prep schools

Free State High senior takes basketball recruiting visits to New England's New Hampton, Winchendon

Free State High senior basketball guard Brady Morningstar, who has decided to attend prep school during the 2005-06 school year, last week visited two schools in New England.

The 6-foot-3, 166-pound Morningstar made recruiting trips to both the Winchendon School in Winchendon, Mass., and New Hampton School in New Hampton, N.H., with his dad, former Kansas University standout Roger Morningstar.

Brady Morningstar, who averaged 19 points and five rebounds a game last season, has received scholarship and/or walk-on offers from schools in the Big 12 Conference, Big Sky, Big East, Missouri Valley and Mid Continent conferences.

“He’s not trying to make it a long, drawn-out deal,” Roger Morningstar said. “We were hoping one would stick out over the other. Those are two different-type places. He’s trying to figure out which one will be best.”

North Carolina’s Rashad McCants attended New Hampton for a year, while Wake Forest’s Darius Songaila, Louisville’s Francisco Garcia and Iowa State’s Curtis Stinson attended Winchendon.

Morningstar will play for the Kansas City Pump and Run team at this weekend’s Sport 2 Sport/Jayhawk Invitational at Allen Fieldhouse, Horejsi Center and Lawrence High.

Games in the 17-and-under age division, which will feature major-college recruits, will run from 6:30 p.m. until about 10:30 p.m. Friday at Allen Fieldhouse and 8 a.m. to about 6:30 p.m. Saturday at all three locations. Finals are set for 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Allen.

Teams from New Mexico, Minnesota, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri and Illinois thus far are entered in the 17-and-under competition. Names of some college prospects attending should be available later in the week.

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Lewis still high on KU: Dwight Lewis, a 6-5 high school junior from Rummel High in Metairie, La., who last weekend visited KU, met with his dad and AAU coach for several hours Monday night.

Lewis’ AAU coach, Al Jones, told rivals.com Tuesday that Lewis had “made a decision about what to do next, but probably won’t make his decision public for a couple of days.”

The decision is to either commit to KU or go ahead and make additional visits to LSU, Florida and USC. Various recruiting analysts believe Lewis eventually will commit to KU as he did April 21, only to remove the commitment the next day.

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New floor: KU officials are shopping for a new floor for Allen Fieldhouse — one that will provide more cushion for the players than the current surface. The old floor, which figures to be dismantled this summer, could be chopped into pieces and sold to fans.

“We’ve discussed it. I can’t say we’ve come to a final decision. It’s one of the options,” KU associate athletic director Jim Marchiony said.

There’s no truth to the rumor the huge Jayhawk on the floor will be painted in the opposite direction next year and TV cameras will facing the bench instead of press row.

“We just re-did our contract with ESPN, and many of our corporate-sponsorship deals incorporate current signage into the deal,” Marchiony said, noting the cameras must point to the press table where the signs are located.

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Richmond considers Robinson: Former KU assistant coach Steve Robinson has interviewed for the vacant head-coaching job at University of Richmond, the Richmond Times reports.

Robinson, 47, is on Roy Williams’ staff at North Carolina. The Spiders also are considering Davidson coach Bob McKillop, Kentucky assistant Dave Hobbs and Winthrop’s Gregg Marshall.