Seattle prep Anrio Adams confirms pledge
The commitment of Seattle combo guard Anrio Adams, which was reported in Sunday’s Journal-World, is now official. Adams, a 6-foot-3, 185-pound senior from Rainier Beach High, told Rivals.com on Sunday he’d spoken to Kansas University coach Bill Self, who Adams said, “is very excited I’ve decided to attend Kansas.”
Adams, who will take the SAT test in early December, will sign with KU in April.
Adams, who has attended three high schools, started at Seattle’s Franklin High, then moved over to Seattle’s Garfield High a year ago. He planned to transfer to St. Patrick High in New Jersey for his senior year, but changed his mind and now is at Rainier, the alma mater of former KU guard Rodrick Stewart.
Currently unranked, he chose KU over Washington, Baylor, UCLA and Louisville.
“I’m cleared and eligible to play this season at Rainier Beach,” he told Rivals.com. “I’m eligible to play this year and I’m looking forward to the season. I’m doing my SAT and ACT stuff right now, so as far as being ready and getting prepped for college, I should be ready for next year. I decided to commit to Kansas now so I can focus on school and basketball. I’m the type of player that can do everything on the basketball court.”
What a schedule: KU senior point guard Tyshawn Taylor was thrilled to play Kentucky in Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Now he gets to play Georgetown today in the Maui Invite.
“It’s one of the best tournaments ever, a legendary tournament,” Taylor said. “I’m excited I get to play in it my last year of college.”
KU could play Georgetown, UCLA and Duke in this tourney.
“We are Kansas, man,” Taylor said. “That’s what we signed up for when we want to come here.”
Finding Nemo: KU’s Jeff Withey and Conner Teahan went snorkeling Sunday and reported they saw sea turtles.
No love for the Hoyas: Georgetown, which lost guards Austin Freeman and Chris Wright and center Julian Vaughn off a 21-11 team, was picked 10th in the preseason Big East coaches poll. Sixteen schools play in the league.
That’s not a lot of respect for a team that has advanced to the NCAA Tournament five times in the last seven years.
“We don’t need a reminder,” coach John Thompson III said. “What coaches vote on in July is irrelevant once we get on the court in January, February and March. Our guys realize that. We’ve been picked where we are. Now we’ve got to play.”
Clark leads: Georgetown senior Jason Clark averaged 12.0 points, 4.1 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.5 steals per game last season. He is the team’s most experienced returnee, with 66 starts in 97 games.
“There’s a lot of responsibility, but I just want to be a leader for this team,” Clark told the school’s official Website. “We have a lot of young guys, but I just want to a leader for them and welcome them to the world of college basketball.”
Big trouble in China: Georgetown’s team went 4-0 on an 11-day summertime trip to China. A fight actually broke out in one of the games.
“I don’t know whether you can measure that,” Thompson said asked if the trip helped his team. “We’re not the only team to take a foreign trip, a lot of teams did. It definitely helped us, I think. How much? Who knows and we’ll see.”
“I think our bond together is huge,” Clark said following the trip. “Just being over there together got us to be stronger and helped us to be closer as a team. I think it’s going to help us on and off the floor.”
This, that: Georgetown won the only meeting between the schools, 70-57, in the semifinals of the 1987 NCAA Southeast Regional in Louisville. Danny Manning had 23 for KU and Reggie Williams 34 for Georgetown. … KU is 7-5 all-time at the Maui Invitational. KU won the ’96 Invite, beating LSU, Cal and Virginia. KU played fourth in ’88, third in 2001, seventh in ’05.