3.30.2012 Morning Whispers

I didn't want to do a fully-fledged Daily Bears Report this morning because the pressure is always on me with those things to give you guys everything I can find across the intertubes, but I did want to bring up a few topics of conversation swirling 'round the Baylor athletic community. I may do this from time to time, probably mostly before weekends where recruits are coming into town.

• It sounds like Quincy Miller is going to declare for the NBA Draft. Everything I read on Baylor's paid sites seem to hint at it and it makes sense for him if his motivations are as represented. He will probably go in the late first round, and if he can get a guarantee from an NBA team that he will be drafted, there is at least an argument to be made that he should go and take advantage of first round guaranteed money. The deadline for declarations is April 10, so we should hear something definitive in the next week or so.
• If Miller leaves (and if you read this, Quincy, I don't want you to!), Baylor would have another scholarship available for next year that it might try to fill with a transfer (either from another 4-year college or a JUCO) or another HS recruit. As I said the other day in the McDAAG thread, the pickings are pretty slim in the 2012 class, so we might be forced to look at transfers. One we've been linked to already is Michigan transfer Evan Smotrycz, a 6-9 SF who averaged 8 points per game and 5 rebounds while shooting 43.5% from 3 (albeit in a small sample). A HS player we have reportedly been interested in is Dyshawn Pierre, a 6-6 SF from Ontario, Canada. Pierre took an official visit to Baylor in September according to his twitter account (@DyshawnPierre) and talks up Baylor quite a bit online. Those with BearsTruth (Baylor's 247Sports site) subscriptions should check out the thread Ashley Hodge posted this morning about possible transfer targets.
• Baylor Football has a scrimmage scheduled for tomorrow and I know the pay sites are going to be there, so you should check out the reports from them if you have subscriptions. I believe that at least two recruits Baylor really wants-- MLB D.J. Green and TE Christian Morgan-- are supposed to be there tomorrow with the possibility for more. Green is considered a strong possibility for a commit at some point, so be on the lookout for that. \
• QB recruiting for the 2013 class is heating up a bit. Baylor already has one QB recruit basically locked up in Bryan's Chris Johnson, but Briles and co are apparently interested in taking another high-caliber recruit in the 2013 class. If I had to guess, the QB Wishlist (if such a thing actually existed) probably goes: 1) J.T. Barrett (either the #1 or #2 dual-threat QB in the country depending on what a particular service thinks about Tyrone Swoopes), 2) Kenny Hill (son of former Rangers pitcher Ken Hill), and 3) Cord Sandberg or Trent Hosick. Baylor only has offers out to 6 QBs including the four I listed, Swoopes, and Johnson. Barrett is by far my personal favorite of the group. If Swoopes is Vince Young 2.0 like the Longhorns want to believe, then Barrett is RG4. He supposedly likes Baylor quite a bit, but so many great schools have offered him, Baylor would have to pull off possibly its best recruiting job ever to secure his commitment.

I think that's it for now. I'll update the thread with anything else that may come up.