RJ Hunter Commits to Georgia State basketball!

RJ is a Panther!

Photo Courtesy of InsidePreps.net

As expected, 2012 recruit Pike HS (IN) guard RJ Hunter has verbally committed to his Dad and Georgia State.  He is the first committment for the 2012 cycle and third committment in the short time Coach Ron Hunter has been on the job.

ESPN Scouts, Inc. Report on Hunter:

Strengths:

R.J. is a long and slim perimeter player. He competes and is productive on the court. R.J. can put the ball on the floor to create offense and is a solid passer on the perimeter. He is skilled and is a good shooter with range to 22 feet. He is the son of current IUPUI Head Coach Ron Hunter.

Weaknesses:
He definitely needs to add muscle to his frame but I would not call him soft. He can get his share of rebounds but added strength will definitely help him be more productive on the boards.

Bottom Line:
Hunter is good now but has a tremendous upside moving forward. As he continues to grow he has the feel and look of a smaller, right handed Tayshaun Prince.

2011 recruit Tony Kimbro, Jr. and Virginia Tech transfer Manny Atkins have already signed and are expected to be on campus in June when the team convenes for summer workouts.

Indianapolis Star Link

AJC Blog Link & AJC Article Link

Men's Basketball Opens in Seattle

Looks like the first games in the Ron Hunter Era are set, according to SB Nation Seattle.

November 12th - 14th the Panthers will take on Washington, Portland and old Atlantic Sun foe Florida Atlantic.

Athlon Sports Likes Ron Hunter Hire

Mitch Light: I’m going off the radar a bit with Ron Hunter, the new head coach at Georgia State. Hunter only made the NCAA Tournament once during his time at IUPUI — losing as a No. 16 seed to Kentucky in 2003 — but his teams were consistently among the best in the Summit League. The Jaguars were 106–56 in their 10 seasons in the Summit, with only one losing record — 6–8 in ’01-02, their first year in the league. Hunter is very charismatic, and he will do his best to promote the Georgia State program in the city of Atlanta. The Panthers have struggled to compete in the ever-improving CAA, but that should change with Hunter in charge.



Athlon Sports Link

National Hoops Report Interview with Coach Hunter

Photo Courtesy National Hoops Report

Very interesting interview with Coach Ron Hunter.  As always, new things pop out in each one of CRH's interviews.

Things of note:
-On thoughts of CAA not being a geographic fit for Georgia State:

“I don’t really buy into that. I’ve been good friends with Rod Barnes for a long time. I truly believe that the culture needs to change here. There has been a culture of losing here for too long. I think it’s a culture of settling for so long. When you keep to that and you start giving yourself excuses why you can’t win, you see programs buy into that. You see programs believe the excuses. If the coaches start to believe that, what do you expect the players to believe when they hear stuff like that?

-On April evaluation period:

“It hurts us not having April. I’m on the board of directors of the NABC and I sit on several NCAA boards. Matter of fact, I’m going to Indianapolis (on Wednesday) to meet with the basketball committee where will talk about this. When I was at IUPUI, I didn’t think April was that big. But now that I’m at a new job and April is off limits, I’m realizing that it is essential to new coaches to have April. Most of the coaches that are hired are hired in March or early April. Not being able to get a start on 2012 recruiting or to finish recruiting is just a huge liability. I think we need to cut back in July and spend more time in April. I am actually one of the guys that voted against recruiting in April but I completely changed my mind with that."

National Hoops Report Link

Updated: Tony Kimbro, Jr. Commits to Georgia State

2011 Recruit Tony Kimbro, Jr.

Photo Courtesy of Scout.com

Yesterday our friends at OnTheRadarHoops broke the story that  6'6 Shooting Guard Tony Kimbro, Jr. of Jefferstown HS (Louisville, KY) was on campus for an official visit.  Within the last hour, the Louisville Courier Journal has confirmed what my sources told me late last night: He is a Panther!

Kimbro is a big time scorer and shoots very well from 3 point range (some stats I've seen as high as 46% during his Junior year).  He was an academic question mark but a two year stint with The Christ School in Arden, NC hammered that out.  Rivals.com rates him as a 3 star recruit and ESPN Scout, Inc. rates him as the #51 SG in the country and a 90 overall rank. 

To give you an idea, PG Devonta White is the highest rated player on our roster and he was rated an 86 coming out of HS.

Kimbro Senior Highlight Tape:

                

Louisville Courier Journal Link

AJC Link

Indy Star: RJ Hunter Down to Four

In a mildly suprising move, RJ Hunter, son of Head Coach Ron Hunter, has cut his list of schools to four: Virginia Tech, Iowa, Wake Forest and Georgia State.

The fact that we made the cut is a tremendously good sign.

Also mentioned in this blog, Zavier Turner, RJ's point guard at Pike and a 2013, recruit has already picked up an offer from Coach Hunter.

Indianapolis Star Link

Coach Hunter Completes Staff

Not a ton of new information here but glad to see the return of Claude Pardue and Tony Bollier along with Darryl Labarrie and Everick Sullivan.

Georgia State Sports Link

AJC: Hunter will not be recruiting son

Good work by our guy Michael Carvell.

AJC Link

Source: Eastern Kentucky's Everick Sullivan Joins Hunter's Staff

Per Eastern Kentucky's Asst. Basketball Coach Austin Newton's Twitter page, Everick Sullivan is the second Asst. Coach hired by Georgia State men's basketball coach Ron Hunter.


Sullivan's Resume:
-Played for Denny Crum at Louisville and graduated in 1988-92
-Wabash Valley (Assistant Coach, 2002-04)
-Lincoln Trail (Head Coach, 2004-05)
-Vincennes (Head Coach, 2005-08)
-Eastern Kentucky (Assistant Coach, 2008-2010)
-Eastern Kentucky (Associate Head Coach, 2010-present)

Sullivan joins Darryl Labarrie and I fully expect an announcement of the rest of the staff next week.

Last day working with Everick Sullivan. Great coach, recruiter, and even better person. Learned a lot from him and wish him all the best!

Basketball Signing Period Begins

While it's not likely to grab the TV shows on ESPNU or anywhere else, today marked the beginning of the late signing period for basketball.

From what I understand our women's basketball team led by second year head coach Sheryl Baldwin-Tener is expected to sign two this week, including top rated SF Miranda Smith, who I profiled here.

On the men's side, we have one scholarship available and Coach Ron Hunter has been actively recruiting with Asst. Coach Darryl Labarrie to find a much needed shooter.

For all of your updates, keep it locked here and to the PantherTalk.com Forums.

My Interview with Coach Ron Hunter

Special thanks to Ron Hunter for joining me last night.

SB Nation Atlanta Link

Coach Hunter on XL950 in Indy

More nuggets from CRH.

XL950 Link

Coach Ron Hunter on WRBB Sports

Interesting nuggets on schedule, recruiting and your ideal players from CRH but great to see our CAA brethren taking an opportunity to speak with our coach.

WRBB Link

Coach Ron Hunter on ESPN 1070

Dan Dakich Show Link

StarNews: Interview with Coach Ron Hunter

Big ups to Star News Writer Brian Mull (who broke the Hunter hiring by the way) for finding us and tracking down Coach Hunter.  Worth the read and some interesting quotes.

Wilmington Star News

2012 RJ Hunter: Unsure of Plans

RJ Hunter, son of Coach Ron Hunter.  Is he ATL bound?

Photo Courtesy of NY2LASports.com

Nice write up on from the Indianapolis Star Coach Ron Hunter's son RJ Hunter who's still deciding if he's staying in Indianapolis or coming to Atlanta.

"I don't know if I'm going to stay," said Hunter, who averaged 14.2 points and shot 39 percent on 3-pointers this season for the sectional champion Red Devils (21-5). "It's kind of 50-50 right now. It'd be hard to leave. All my friends are here. I've gone to elementary and middle school here, so it'd be a transition. Indianapolis and Atlanta are way different cities."


Hunter joked that he crossed IUPUI off his list of potential college options and added Georgia State. He said his dad has already started recruiting him.

"Oh yeah, after about 10 hours, he was already recruiting," Hunter said. "I got a chance to look around (Georgia State's) campus a little bit, and I'd like to play for him. We'll just have to see how it goes."

Response to AJC's Mark Bradley 's Article on Ron Hunter

The AJC's Mark Bradley.  He doesn't heart GSU basketball

Photo Courtesy of PBA.org

For those of you who may have missed it, Mark Bradley posted a blog entry on the AJC about the Ron Hunter hiring at GSU. Now I usually leave the basketball-related topics to Ben but this particular article rubbed me the wrong way due to Mark's obvious disdain for GSU athletics. Maybe this article was just the straw that broke the camel's back for me, I don't know. I say "disdain" because until he comes out and tells us why he must take every stab he can at GSU, I'm going to assume he has an unjust natural pessimistic outlook on anything related to sports at Georgia State. I'd love to be proven wrong but I'm not sure he can do so at this point.

Moving along to my response to him, which I'm using every avenue possible to get this in front of his eyes.

Mark Bradley - You just cannot get enough of taking stabs at Georgia State's attempts to improve their athletics, can you? Football last year, basketball this year right.
Comments such as these, "It’s unclear if anyone can actually win at Georgia State" and "To succeed at GSU, a coach must not only win (and winning has proved tough enough)" is only pandering to the ignorant. There's already enough people around here who love to hate on Georgia State (GSU) for starting football and for any other reason they can think of. You do not help this situation so if that's your goal, congratulations, you succeed.

Why do I say this? So you don't dismiss this as an angry rant from someone speaking from emotion, let me explain with facts. First, ever heard of Lefty Driesell? GSU men's basketball coach from 1997-2003. He won at GSU with an overall record of 103-59 including a NCAA 2nd round appearance and an NIT appearance in the following year. So to say nobody has won at GSU is flat out wrong. Not only is it wrong but it's also a disgrace to your profession. You have the responsibility of educating the uneducated and currently you're only catering to them.

Second, nobody prior to current GSU President Mark Becker has cared enough about athletics in order to put the resources into the programs to get winning results. (FYI - Becker took over in 2009) I cannot say I completely blame them up until Carl Patton. GSU was a different school back then. It's a completely changed landscape and it's still changing. Using past performance of athletics at this university as an indicator of future success is absolutely foolish. Go ask the administration at UCF about that. (Ask UGA too, they were humiliated by UCF in this season's bowl game). I don't understand how this is hard to comprehend.
It takes the right administration and the right coaches to win and that has been the issue at Georgia State. Contrary to your belief, there is not some black cloud curse over GSU athletics. The GSU administration is now on the right track. Coach Bill Curry with football, Coach Greg Frady with baseball (18-4, receiving votes in 2 of the national college baseball polls) and hopefully Ron Hunter will be the correct piece for the basketball program to begin the turn around.

I welcome a response to explain your comments I addressed above.
[End Response]

One more thing, notice how he ignores the recent years success of GSU baseball whenever he makes a comment such as "it’s unclear if anyone can actually win at Georgia State." What does this tell us? Winning makes him go away. Ron Hunter, I hope you win...often.

The Voice Sits Down With Coach Hunter

GSU Sports Communications Release

AJC: Ron Hunter, Dreamer of Dreams

Mark Bradley weighs in on our new coach.

AJC Link

IUPUI's Ron Hunter is New Men's Basketball Coach

New Georgia State Men's Basketball Coach Ron Hunter

Photo Courtesy of the Indianapolis Star

About 8:50pm, Wilmington StarNews writer Brian Mull announced via Twitter:

According to a source Ron Hunter, the coach at IUPUI, will be the next coach at GSU. Press conference tomorrow at 3 pm #caahoops

Then one by one, the outlets began picking it up.  Andy Katz of ESPN.com gushed with information and included contract information.  The Indianapolis Star did the most extensive write up and spoke with Hunter as well.

The Introductory press conference is scheduled for 3PM in the Senate Ballroom in the Student Center.