Ok, we'll use this thread to outline IU's 2002 basketball recruits -- stories, pictures, anything!

To start ... and ill start profiling soon ... here's a picture from last Wednesday's scrimmage

With Strickland playing point guard, Team Indiana dominated the scrimmage at Perry Meridian High School Wednesday.

Recruits practice in 2002 Barnstorm tour

Published Monday, June 24, 2002

IU recruits Daryl Pegram, Marshall Strickland, Roderick Wilmont and Bracey Wright played together for the first time before they come to IU this fall at Perry Meridian High School Wednesday night in an All-Star game against current and former high school players. Wright finished the game with 32 points, including 20 in the second half, to pace the recruits to a 120-113 win. Strickland finished the game with 31 points; Pegram added 21; Wilmont finished with 26.

Bracey Wright, Daryl Pegram and Marshall Strickland defend the basket for Team Indiana

IU-bound Wright puts on show

Local team squeaks by short-handed group of recruits

BY JEFF CARROLL Times Sports Writer
Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2002

GARY -- In some factions, more has been made of who Indiana coach Mike Davis did not sign -- namely local favorite and Indiana Mr. Basketball Sean May -- than who actually did complete a national letter of intent.

A barnstorming tour of Davis' first four recruits, which concluded at Indiana University-Northwest Wednesday night, has helped shift some of the focus back upon a recruiting class that many experts have ranked in the nation's top 10.

Looking like the next IU superstar at IUN, where a group of local standouts beat the recruits 62-59, was shooting guard Bracey Wright. The 6-foot-2 shooting guard from The Colony, Texas, scored 33 points Wednesday, including four 3-pointers.

"I didn't know very much about the state of Indiana when I committed here," Wright said. "I love everything up here. It's a good basketball state, the tradition is fun and people up here make you family. That's what I was looking for.

"And it snows up here. I like that."

Wright and fellow IU recruits Roderick Wilmont and Daryl Pegram never left the floor for the recruit team. Marshall Strickland, another Davis signee, has been fighting an injured shooting wrist and was present, but did not play.

Wright is ranked No. 16 among this year's high school seniors by ESPN.com, and No. 8 at TheInsiders.com. His high school coach, Tommy Thomas, has said Wright is the best incoming freshman shooting guard in the nation.

"I believe the quote that he said, I believe that," Wright said. "I go out there every day like I am the No. 1 shooting guard and I play like that."

EC Central grad Bobby Smith had 13 points and Purdue Calumet's Ryan Sexton added 10 points to lead the Region team over the beat-up recruits.

Wilmont had 13 points for the IU team and Pegram, a 6-foot-8 forward from Los Angeles who played high school ball in Massachusetts, added 10 points and seven rebounds.

Tony Scheub, a Griffith girls assistant, and Trent Waltz from DePauw University filled out the recruit roster.

"The fanfare is crazy," Pegram said. "Coach Davis is a real good coach. He has the program going in a great direction -- me and my family sensed that when I committed in October."

The halves were shaved to 15 minutes from the customary 20 to give the battered recruits a chance to recover from the grueling exhibition tour.

"The pace was a little bit slower than I thought it was gonna be," Sexton said. "It was a pretty easy game. ... That's what it's about -- let these guys show off for their fans. They're gonna be good."

GARY — Bracey Wright swooped through the lane, brought his right arm over his head and attempted a tomahawk dunk. He was fouled on the play, causing him to draw iron, but the scintillating move still drew oohs and aahs from the crowd.

That was exactly what 200 or so people — many clad in red or white Indiana University

T-shirts, others in gray Final Four T-shirts — came to see on the final stop of the IU Recruit Tour on Wednesday night.

Wright, Roderick Wilmont and Daryl Pegram — the fourth member of the Hoosiers’ highly-touted recruiting class, Marshall Strickland, sat out with a wrist injury — gave those assembled at Indiana University Northwest a glimpse of what to expect next season, taking on a team of region all-stars in an exhibition.

And the recruits got another glimpse of the passion for basketball in the state.

“All four of us have been overwhelmed by the support throughout Indiana,” said Pegram, a 6-foot-8 forward from California. “It makes you feel good as a player, makes you feel good about your college decision.”

Wright, from football-crazed Texas, also has gotten a greater appreciation for “Hoosier Hysteria.”

“The turnout for all the games has been tremendous,” said Wright, a 6-3 guard who was a McDonald’s All-American. “People eat, sleep and drink IU basketball.”

IU fans likely will drink up what these recruits have to offer.

Wright is a scorer who has virtually unlimited range and — as the attempted dunk showed — can take it to the rim. Pegram is long and athletic, if on the thin side. Wilmont, a 6-4 guard from Florida, rebounds well for his size and doesn’t hesitate to post up. Strickland, a 6-2 point guard from Maryland, has the reputation of being a smooth ballhandler — he had suffered a chipped bone in his right wrist before the tour, and re-aggravated the injury taking a bump during last Friday’s stop.

Oh, the game. The region all-stars actually beat the recruits 62-59, behind the 13 points of NBA hopeful Bobby Smith from East Chicago. The game was mostly fun, but became more competitive in the final five minutes of the second 15-minute half.

“Nobody on our team likes to lose,” Pegram said. “That’s why Coach (Mike) Davis recruited us — we’re competitors.”

In defeat, Wright was the talk of the game, pouring in 33 points.

“That was pretty fun playing against an All-American,” Lew Wallace graduate Shallun Culp said. “I saw him on TV in the McDonald’s All-American Game, and I wasn’t that impressed. I was impressed tonight.”

Wright nearly brought back the recruits from a 40-26 halftime deficit, as his 3-pointer as time expired rattled in and out.

“When I shot, at first I didn’t think it was going in — it was riding all the way to the right,” Wright said. “It straightened out, but it just rolled around.”

Said Wilmont: “The regular season, we’ll finish that.”

The recruits finished their seven-stop tour through Indiana, having played the first six games in seven days. It was a fatiguing experience — the recruit team had five players on Wednesday, while the region team had 10, a pretty typical disparity — but also one that brought the incoming freshmen closer.

“We heard about each other, but now we got to see how each other plays,” Wilmont said. “We definitely bonded a lot.”