Basketball camp offers new
opportunities for recruiting
Camp staged in Mackey, games
open to public
By Keith Thomas
Editor
in Chief
Mackey Arena is going to be an energetic and enthusiastic
place for the first time in months this weekend.
Beginning Saturday afternoon, some of the areas
top recruits will be showing off their basketball skills in front of
coach Gene Keady and company in Purdue's first Elite Camp.
This relatively new concept of Elite Camps is a
two-day basketball workout featuring kids who have a possible interest
in playing at the college level.
"I think you'll see a lot of very good players,"
said Price. "The majority of these players are being recruited at some
level."
These players from all over the state will begin
playing some games around 2 p.m., on Saturday which Price said is open
to the public, in Mackey Arena and the Intercollegiate Athletic Facility.
The day of separate games will conclude with a tournament that begins
at 9:15 p.m.
"People are going to be playing and enthusiasm
is going to be high," said Price. "If people are curious and want to
come and look at the talent, they should do it."
Although this camp is new to the Purdue community,
Price said other major universities have been using this as a recruiting
tool for years.
This will aid recruiting for the month of July,
as per NCAA rules the number of days coaches have to evaluate players
in the month has been reduced from 24 to 14 and personal contacts and
evaluations have been restricted to five.
With the camp being competitive and players trying
to impress the handful of college coaches who will be along side Keady,
Price said prospective campers should ensure they are attending the
right camp.
"This camp is geared toward young men who are being
recruited," Price said. "If you're not being recruited, it may not be
as much fun, because the talent level is going to be high.
"This isn't going to be one of those camps where
you're necessarily going just to get better."
But, the more traditional and annual camps that
are, in part, used to refine young basketball players' skills are still
going to held this year.
One of the players the Purdue coaching staff hopes
to get a better look at is 6-9 center/forward Matt Kiefer of Evansville
(Ind.) Mater Dei,
Kiefer, who averaged 17.6 points and 9.3 rebounds
per game last year as a junior in high school, said playing in camp
like this can serve a dual purpose.
"You want to just really to go out there to play
against the top players in the state," said Kiefer. "You also want to
appear to (the coaches) to be very coachable."
Joining Kiefer on the Elite Camp roster is Central
Catholic's Tyler Best.
The 6-9 Best, who averaged 14 points and 9.5 rebounds
per game as a high school junior, said participating in camps similar
to this one helps aid potential recruits to revise their college lists.
"Being there, it gives you a chance to know the
facilities, the campus and the coaches," said Best.
For Price and company, seeing these future college
basketball players early is priceless.
"We're hoping we're going to make this an annual
camp," said Price. "We've had a really fantastic response to it.
"We limited it to 80, and we blew by that number
within days of the brochure going out. We bumped it up to 100 and got
to there within days again."
Action continues through the weekend as the campers
will be playing again from 9 a.m. to approximately 12:20 p.m. Sunday.
• Price said one mistake that appeared on
the original brochures was that the Shooter's Camp, on June 28-30, was
only for high schooler students, grades 8-12. According to Price, that
particular camp is actually for grades 3-12. Price said that there is
still room in all of the Gene Keady's Basketball Camps. They also include
three Regular Camps on June 17-21, June 24-28 and July 15-19. The first
two Regular Camps are all ages and the third camp is only for grades
3-8. On June 16, Father/Son Camp for all ages and Day Camp on July 30-Aug.
3 for all ages.
For further information, call Price at 494-3214.
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