The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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BASKETBALL RECRUITING Grandstaff said. "A lot of games people will start out in a box and one on him, but he does a lot of things, comes off screens really well, plays strong with the ball in his hands, can pick and roll or pop. He is a shooter, but he's more of a scorer who can score in a lot of dif- ferent ways attacking the basket." Grandstaff hit six triples in a row in one 26-point game at the LeBron James Skills Academy this summer before being held out due to a bad ankle — and that was with five- star guard Rashad Vaughn check- ing him. North Carolina, Texas and several others have taken notice of him since he opened things back up. "Texas is coming to see him," Wes Grandstaff said. "They love his scoring, but they like his court vision more. If you look up 'combo guard' in the dictionary, you'll see his picture. "He's a very good passer and sees the floor amazingly. He loves making the great pass. He scores on our high school team because he has to, but on our AAU team we don't care who scores. We just want to win." Another of the AAU squad's scorers, Duncanville (Texas) High's Matt McQuaid, is also on U-M's target list, as is five-star big man Elijah Thomas of Lancaster (Texas) High (6-9, 250, Rivals.com's No. 9 junior nationally). As for Grand- staff, Oklahoma State remains in the mix, while local school SMU is now an option with Larry Brown at the helm. Florida is interested, while Mich- igan's first contact came in early February. " T h e y ' v e re a c h e d o u t , " We s Grandstaff said. "They said one of their coaches had followed his re- cruitment on Twitter, so they're go- ing to continue to follow up. "We're wide open to whatever is the best situation for him, re- gardless where it is. We're really wide open, but the Big Ten with the crowds you get up there, that's a crazy basketball conference. Ohio State reached out recently, too." T h e G r a n d s t a ff s p l a n t o g e t through the season before taking unofficial visits this spring and are in no hurry to decide. McQuaid (6-5, 175), meanwhile, hosted the U-M coaches at his school in mid-January. He shot bet- ter than 45 percent from three-point range in Nike Elite Youth Basket- ball League (EYBL) AAU play over the summer to earn distinction as Rivals.com's No. 58 junior prospect nationally. Beilein and assistant Bacari Alex- ander have both been in Duncan- ville to watch him this winter. "They started recruiting me about two weeks ago," McQuaid reported Jan. 27. "Coach Beilein came to one of my games, and Coach Alexander came and watched my practice." McQuaid is averaging around 15 points per game for a team that plays just outside of Dallas. He's still deadly from long range, can hit the pull-up jumper and takes pride