I have just heard from a reliable source that Devan Bawinkle has indeed already heard from more than a dozen different schools, mostly in the midwest.
He is a Class of 2008 target, and has only one year at Highland Community College,
and of all the schools getting in contact with Devan, he is likely to be very careful picking one a thousand miles away,
or one that is "too high" (recall that even when he played last year for Beilein-the coach that recruited him-
he still barely played at all and scored fewer points than any player on their roster, except a guy who played just 50 minutes,
and was told by Huggy that there'd be no chance for much playing time in the future),
and he likely won't go to any school again, whose coach is being talked about as a great hire somewhere else (like SIU!).
Plus, if it was ONLY about the coaching change, then why did Devan wait until August to transfer,
why didn't he leave last April or May when he'd have had more time to work on future plans?
Here are some possible answers as I have gotten from a couple sources.
One is that Devan Bawinkel is the ultimate team player! He really did love his team and his teammates and wanted to stay with them even if he wasn't assured much playing time.
Only when he was virtually run out by Huggins to free up a scholarship for a bigger player, did Devan decide he had to leave.
Also, as successful as West Virginia has been, they are still a football school and basketball takes a deep back seat, and as the fall approached, it helped solidify Devan's choice about his future.
Sadly, just to show that, all you have to do is go to any of the WVU message boards, and see that Devan's leaving barely gets a mention.
Football is always the hot topic, and their Rivals page doesn't even have a basketball forum!
And the few mentions say terribly insulting things like
"not a big loss at all"
"who are we bringing in to replace him"
"Apparently Huggs was a lot more honest with Bawinkle than Beilein ever was"
" WVU needed to get rid of some of the guys on the roster. This frees up another scholly that can be used on a stud recruit. Huggins seemed to push out Bawinkel in the nicest way possible"
Of the choices Devan will face for 2008, it would seem that two of the schools that recruited him the MOST in high school, DePaul and Marquette, are out of the picture, because the Big East has a 2-year rule on interconference transfers.
Same goes for Notre Dame and Georgetown even though they were cut from his lists way back in 2005.
Right at the top of the list would be Michigan, since John Beilein is now the head coach there. But as I hinted about, Devan just may not want to take a chance of going there only to find the same amount of playing time he got under Beilein last year. Tough choice.
Eastern Kentucky would be somewhere he'd get immediate playing time, and the coach there is Jeff Neubauer, who two years ago was top assistant under John Beilein at WVU, and Neubauer was one of the guys that recruited Bawinkle.
You can bet Neubauer knows Devan's phone number.
Other Big Ten schools that had interest back in 2006 were Michigan State, Illinois, Iowa, and Northwestern...so you can bet they are all back in touch with Devan, but will he want to go Big Ten and risk not getting the playing time, especially in totally new systems like Iowa or Northwestern?
And one of Devan's best friends on the AAU circuit is Bobby Frasor-- so you know Devan doesn't want to make a mistake of going to a top school and having the coach then recruit a phenom freshman that'll come in behind you and grab all the possible playing time you'd get.
Then lastly, there were several smaller schools who were very interested in Devan and where he would find immediate, extensive playing time. I reviewed all the comments and interviews Devan gave to the recruiting services back in 2004-2006.
NIU, Northern Iowa, and BRADLEY are the schools that were in touch with Devan early on but fell off his lists when he narrowed to Big East schools only.
Let's see if BU is interested again.
Would anyone be surprised?
