Shabazz Muhammad, others attract coaches to Las Vegas as open evaluation period begins

By Case Keefer (contact)

Friday, Sept. 10, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

The Bishop Gorman gymnasium hosted quite a crowd Thursday night.

One of the Gorman basketball team’s first workouts of the year attracted a handful of college coaches. The bunch included UCLA coach Ben Howland, Memphis coach Josh Pastner, Utah coach Jim Boylen and Duke assistant Steve Wojciechowski.

“Let’s face it, college coaches love coming to Las Vegas,” Bishop Gorman coach Grant Rice said. “If you can give them a reason to be here, they’ll find a way to come.”

The Gaels gave coaches plenty of reasons to flock to Las Vegas as college basketball’s fall open evaluation period began Thursday. None bigger than 6-foot-5 junior Shabazz Muhammad, who rivals.com ranks as the class of 2012’s top guard recruit in the country.

Muhammad and his teammates, specifically juniors Rosco Allen and Ben Carter, will continue to bring top-notch programs to town for the next few weeks. Rice said he expected visits from North Carolina, Kentucky, Arizona, Arizona State, California and more through the weekend.

“It’s great having all these coaches taking the time to come in from all these different states,” Muhammad said. “It’s a great opportunity for me and my teammates.”

Muhammad’s list of suitors is vast — UNLV, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke and USC account for only about a fourth of his offers.

Muhammad said Thursday that he had no plans to narrow down his interest list until his senior year in 2011. But that doesn’t mean this fall’s visits can’t have a lasting impact.

“It’s definitely going to come down to the coach, my relationship with the coach and the style of play,” Muhammad said.

The attention Muhammad commands also figures to help his teammates' chances of getting noticed by colleges. Rice said that was certainly the case last year with Allen.

Allen served as a reserve forward on last year’s state championship team, but recruiters quickly took notice.

“Coaches would be watching us to see Shabazz and John Loyd and then notice this 6-foot-8 kid making long jumpers,” Rice said. “They started asking about him and it went from there.”

Allen has steadily become one of the nation’s top prospects. While rivals.com lists Muhammad as the country’s No. 3 overall prospect, Allen isn’t far behind at No. 23 in the class of 2012.

Many schools — including UNLV, Arizona and UCLA — are recruiting both Allen and Muhammad. Rice is confident the recruiting circus created by Muhammad and Allen can help teams across the valley.

“What I wish people realized is this helps Las Vegas as an area,” Rice said. “Coaches come here to watch kids and then they’ll be asking around about who else they should go see. Having this kind of talent is going to benefit the whole city.”

Another program that has benefitted the Las Vegas hoops scene is Findlay College Prep, which won its second straight ESPN RISE national championship last year.

Findlay held an open workout similar to Gorman’s on Thursday morning for college coaches to check out this year’s talent. Although some of Findlay’s top prospects are already committed — including center Myck Kabongo to Texas and guard Nick Johnson to Arizona — the rest of the roster is full of uncommitted talent.

Rivals.com ranks senior guard Amir Garrett as the No. 51 recruit in the country, and he has received offers from Arizona, Virginia Tech and Boston College. Forward Winston Shepard, ranked as the No. 36 recruit in the class of 2012, is considering UNLV, Arizona, Kansas, Texas and others. Sophomore Nigel Williams-Goss figures to be one of the top recruits in the class of 2013.

Findlay coach Mike Peck said recruiters weren’t the only ones impressed with Thursday’s workout, which was the first on-court action of the new school year for the Pilots.

“I was very pleased with it,” Peck said. “It was very competitive and guys played very hard. They were very serious and focused. When it was all said and done, they all realized that they’re going to try to get better individually and collectively.”

College coaches will be around for every step of the process. Las Vegas is now officially a hotbed for college basketball prospects.

“The kids are getting used to it,” Rice said. “But it’s still kind of cool to see a big-time college coach walk in the doors on the first possible day.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.