After de-committing from WVU, 2011 PG Boatright taking hard look at UNLV

By Ryan Greene

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010 | 2:20 a.m.

Well, fire up that carousel again, because a new passenger has jumped aboard.

A week ago, it looked like UNLV had narrowed its search for a point guard in the 2011 recruiting class to two players — Mount Vernon (N.Y.) High's Jabarie Hinds and Woodland Hills (Calif.) Taft High's Spencer Dinwiddie.

Then, it appeared that Dinwiddie had emerged as the top target for Lon Kruger and his staff after Hinds committed to West Virginia.

Now, things have vastly changed.

Dinwiddie was supposed to visit campus this weekend before deciding between UNLV, Colorado, Harvard, Oregon and possibly UCLA. Now, it appears as if UNLV is off the table for the former high school teammate of Rebels sophomore guard Justin Hawkins. Dinwiddie mysteriously canceled the visit. All signs point to UNLV being out of the picture.

The Rebels were thrown a lifeline from out of nowhere, though.

Enter Ryan Boatright.

Boatright, who stars for Aurora (Ill.) High in Chicago's far west suburbs, just entered UNLV's radar, but now could be a very real possibility. Rivals.com ranks him as the No. 48 overall prospect in the 2011 class and its No. 11 point guard.

Just a day before Hinds gave his verbal commitment to West Virginia, Boatright had done the same, which made Hinds heading there that much more puzzling.

Apparently, it was equally baffling for Boatright.

Both Boatright and his AAU coach Reggie Rose — the older brother of Chicago Bulls star guard Derrick Rose — are shut off to the media as the 5-foot-10 speedster figures out his future plans.

After being kept in the dark about West Virginia recruiting Hinds, Boatright de-committed and, last week, his mother, Tanesha, made it known that the three schools he's targeting as potential homes are, in no particular order, UNLV, UConn and Oklahoma.

"Ryan committed first," she told the Chicago Tribune. "Anybody who read anything about it knows how he feels about the school and coach (Bob) Huggins, so the situation speaks for itself. I wish the best to coach Huggins and don't have anything negative to say about the way it ended up.

"I told my son it doesn't make a difference who did what and why, just stay focused on what's ahead. I'm just thankful as a mom he has these options to go to college."

Boatright made headlines a few years back when he committed to Southern Cal and former coach Tim Floyd while just an eighth-grader. He pulled that commitment, though, when Floyd and the USC program went down in flames following the 2008-09 season.

The UNLV interest from Boatright is, well, interesting, as Kruger & Co. had not actively recruited him up until this point.

Rebels assistant Lew Hill will pay a visit to Boatright in Aurora on Wednesday, and it appears likely that he will make a visit to campus next weekend, following a trip this weekend to UConn.

Boatright is expected to make a decision by the November early signing period, which goes from the 10th to the 17th.

The Rebels are wanting a point guard in the 2011 class who they can groom for a year to take over for Oscar Bellfield after he graduates following the 2011-12 season. The diminutive Boatright certainly is talented enough to fill that void.

He averaged 26.2 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 3.3 steals as a junior and, should UNLV land him, would join Notre Dame (Mass.) Prep forward Grandy Glaze as the second member of the Rebels' 2011 recruiting haul.