With one 2010 scholarship left, Rebels target Joseph, Desrosiers

By Ryan Greene

Friday, July 24, 2009 | 2:30 a.m.

Ryan Greene

Carson Desrosiers

RIVALS.COM

Cory Joseph

With numerous summer prep tournaments in Las Vegas this week, bringing thousands of players to town, UNLV's coaching staff is mainly scouting for its 2011 recruiting class.

But the Rebels do still have one scholarship to give out for the 2010-11 campaign and they appear to have honed in on two prospects -- Cory Joseph and Carson Desrosiers.

Both are playing in the adidas Super 64 this week, and neither is a guaranteed get for UNLV coach Lon Kruger and staff. However, the Rebels have solid connections with both.

Desrosiers -- a thin-yet-sturdy 6-foot-10 center from suburban Boston -- played Thursday morning in front of a small crowd in the cramped Rancho High auxiliary gym.

According to recruiting services, Desrosiers might be a more reasonable option for the Rebels. Rivals.com has him as a 3-star prospect (on a 5-star scale), but that doesn't mean the interest in his services is minimal. After all, those rankings -- see Beas Hamga -- only mean so much.

For the 9 a.m. pool-play contest, Kruger found a seat with his son, Kevin, just behind the basket against a wall adjacent to the bench of Desrosiers' Mass Rivals club.

They were joined by coaches from almost every school that remains on the "list" for the lanky center, including Arizona State, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Marquette, Providence and Syracuse.

Within minutes, Desrosiers made it quite clear why they were all still after him.

Aside from grabbing rebound upon rebound against an overmatched team from suburban San Diego, he slipped in casual layups, dropped in mid-range jumpers, and even hit a step-back 18-footer from the wing.

"I'd say I'm kind of inside-outside," he said. "Maybe 60-40 outside. I've just been working on my shot, my ball-handling. If I have someone small on me, which is often, I take them inside. Someone bigger or heavier than me, I'll take them outside, try to shoot over them or go around them.

"I take notice -- I see what coaches are here and kind of leave that in the back of my head while I'm playing. I've just got to play well for them."

Desrosiers left them pleased, scoring 17 points in an 82-60 win for his Mass Rivals club.

He's far from a finished product.

At 6-10, he only checks in a Big Mac over 210 pounds and has plenty of room to fill out in his upper body. His post moves are still developing, as is his defensive prowess. But at that height, his ability to run the floor and handle the ball are intriguing.

UNLV sounds as probable a destination as any after his senior campaign at Central Catholic in Lawrence, Mass.

He's already fairly familiar with Las Vegas, having several family members who call the valley home, including a pair of uncles.

"I have a great relationship with coach Kruger and coach (Steve) Henson, and I have family in Vegas, so it appeals to me," said Desrosiers, who was in town for an unofficial visit last season. "I definitely think just the way coach Kruger is bringing the program together, I know a bunch of years ago it was big in the city, and it's starting to become big again. I'm walking around the Strip and off the Strip and everybody has UNLV gear on. It's becoming a big part of the city again."

It might not be long before it's known if Desrosiers will be part of that, too.

"I'm maybe looking late August or early September," he said in his Boston accent. "I'm not sure yet if I want to take advantage of the four or five official visits or just take one official visit to the school I choose."

It might not be so simple for Cory Joseph.

The 6-3 combo-guard from Toronto, who last season helped 33-0 Findlay Prep rise to national prominence, seems to have rocketed onto everyone's radar.

While UNLV has been all over him for quite a while, now heavyweight coaches are pouring out of the woodwork as he climbs higher and higher in the 2010 rankings. On the current Rivals150, he ranks 12th.

Everyone in the gym this week appears aware of it except for Joseph himself.

Thursday afternoon, in a game that got out of hand at Rancho's north gym, he casually dropped in 19 points in a 31-point win over a team from Chicago. He did it with a smile on his face, never even coming close to glancing at coaches like Villanova's Jay Wright, Tennessee's Bruce Pearl, Texas's Rick Barnes and Kansas assistant/legend Danny Manning.

"As long as you're smiling on the court, you play your best," he said. "If you're miserable, you'll be thinking too much and maybe not playing as well as you could.

"I feel more eyes watching me, but I just stay the same way. I'm not trying to play the way I don't play."

Playing for Grassroots Canada Elite -- which won the 2008 adidas Super 64 in Vegas -- helps keep Joseph focused, as the team shows more willingness to play shut-down defense than just about any in town this week. It's something he and Findlay teammate Tristan Thompson easily carry over from the prep season.

After falling behind 4-0 early Thursday, the Grassroots bunch began applying pressure everywhere and allowed only nine more points in the first half. By the mid-way point in the second half, the game got out of hand, as Joseph's team led by 31.

An afternoon of hounding the refs by the coaches on the other bench resulted in tempers boiling over, multiple technical fouls and the game ending in a forfeit with Grassroots up, 67-36.

All the while, Joseph strolled around behind the mess with a huge grin, joking with his teammates. It only helped build the enthusiasm college coaches have for him, combined with the 35 points he scored Wednesday night in an eight-point victory over the Atlanta Celtics.

"When you can shut down people's best players, it's unbelievable," he said. "They start getting frustrated and going out of their sets and doing things that they don't do. It creates confusion, and at the end of the game it shows. They got mad and they forfeited."

And that remains Joseph's joy. He's unfazed by the growing number of eyes following him, as he combines through this weekend with Thompson to try and keep Grassroots Canada atop the Super 64 food chain.

"He doesn't get involved with the recruiting at all — not at all," Grassroots coach Ro Russell said. "He knows the schools are there; he doesn't look and see who's here; he doesn't open letters. He's not even great to get in touch with over the phone. He knows at some point he'll have to sit down and figure out where he wants to go."

It can then be assumed that his intense focus on goals at hand could help the Rebels' chances as bigger programs try to woo him.

He said he plans on shortening his list toward the end of the summer, and UNLV sounds like it could survive the next round of cuts.

"He likes them. He's gotten to know them; his former teammate (Carlos Lopez) will be a freshman there," Russell said. "From what they're telling him, he has an opportunity to be a big fish in a smaller pond, it's something he's legitimately considering."

Plus, with Joseph entering his second season playing in the shadows of the Strip, UNLV has one insider edge that other schools pursuing him don't.

"I know a lot of friends here now since I've been here," he said. "It kinda feels like home."