Confirmed: Baylor MBB gets commit #1 for 2013

UPDATE: When I started writing this post, the news was unconfirmed. It has now been confirmed by Todd Wills of SicEmSports.com. According to Wills, Motley committed after an in-home visit tonight with Baylor coaches. For a while, this post made zero sense for that reason. I've since cleaned it up a bit.

Per Jim Hicks (Rcs Sports) Johnathon Motley 6'8 f (N. Shore HS)confirmed he has committed to Baylor!

— Jim Hicks (@RcsSports) September 13, 2012

Remember what I said about fixating on recruiting? Yeah, this is one of those times. I have a saved search on twitter for tweets including the word "Baylor" that I look over from time to time. Tonight, as I was looking again, I came across the tweet on the right. I had no idea at the time who Jim Hicks was or why he would talk about himself in the third person, but his information checked out. Johnathan Motley committed tonight to Scott Drew and the Baylor Bears.

With the confirmation of Motley's commitment (Motley himself tweeted about it several times and even retweeted my announcement of it), we can safely consider Motley in the fold of Baylor's recruiting class. He is, as I said, the first. Before today, Motley was tied to Baylor numerous times, both because of his own recruitment and the time Baylor spent observing his AAU team, the Houston Defenders. The Defenders are notable not only because Motley plays for them, but also because they are coached by the father of uber-recruits Aaron and Andrew Harrison, fellow Defenders. A month ago, 247Sports' Jerry Meyer tweeted that Baylor and Houston led for Motley and wrote that staying near his home was an important consideration for the 4* PF. (Meyer also tweeted that Motley is "criminally underrated." As opposed to civilly underrated, I guess.) It appears that appeal has won out.

According to his recruiting profiles, Motley is scheduled for an official visit to Baylor on September 22. That's next Saturday. I imagine that visit will still occur despite his commitment, as most recruits still like to take their official visit even if they are already verbally committed. The Early Signing Period for this year begins on November 14 and ends a week later on the 21st. ow that the news has been confirmed, we can celebrate our first commitment of 2013! I'll do a full write-up in the morning (because it's hella late), so look for that later. For now, profiles-- 247Sports, Rivals, ESPN-- and highlights below the jump.