Today’s shameless plug of the Texas Longhorns comes to you by way of an announcement from Avery Bradley that he will be playing his college ball for Coach Rick Barnes down in Austin.
Bradley is a 6′2″, 170 lb shooting guard with a 6′7″ wing span and is known as much for his lock down defense as his scoring ability. More information after the jump.
via Rivals.com:
The Texas Longhorn basketball program has become known for having successful guards on the college level that follow up their UT career by being selected in the NBA draft. Naismith and Wooden Award winner T.J. Ford was the first, followed by Royal Ivey, Daniel Gibson and D.J. Augustin last year. On Wednesday, the Texas program received a commitment from five-star guard Avery Bradley, who could eventually follow suit and find his way to the NBA.
Bradley has gone from a high-major prospect entering the spring AAU circuit to a top-10 prospect in the 2009 class in a handful of months. While Pac-10 programs were aware of the Tacoma area star initially, programs such as Texas, Florida, Memphis, Kansas, Wake Forest, and Kansas State, among others, extended offers in the spring. Throw in previous offers from UCLA, Arizona, USC, Oregon, Washington and Washington State and the defensive menace with a 6-7-wing span had an offer list on par with any prospect in the class.
The 6-foot-2.5, 170-pound long-armed defender and high flying scorer was terrific in the spring but took his game to an entirely different level over the summer, backing up what the top programs in the country witnessed in April and May.
The summer began with impressive performances at the Paul Pierce Skills Academy and Reebok U camps. The quickly improving shooting guard then put together a special week in Las Vegas, averaging 29.4 points in the weeklong Reebok Event that included a 40-point game. The No. 8 prospect in the class followed up his stellar Las Vegas showing with a co-MVP selection at the Nike Global Games in Portland, scoring more than 20 per game as well as locking down opponents.
If Las Vegas and the Nike Global Games didn’t stamp an impressive AAU circuit resume, his play in Brazil last week for the Nike Select Team certainly did. Playing on a team with the likes of Xavier Henry, Alex Oriakhi, Milton Jennings, Daniel Orton, Tommy Mason-Griffin and Keith Gallon, Bradley again stole the show. The rapidly improving offensive player paced the team in scoring at 23.8 points and he was the only player to score 20 or more points in all four games.
Bradley, who played the last two seasons at Bellarmine Prep, becomes the second commitment in the 2009 class for the Longhorns, following Duncanville wing Shawn Williams, who committed August 8. Bradley will play his senior season at Findlay Prep in Las Vegas.
Bradley becomes the second five-star prospect to commit to Texas this calendar year, following 2010 combo forward Tristan Thompson, who picked the Longhorns in March.
First-year assistant Chris Ogden recruited Bradley.
Props to TheStar for the heads up
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Tarheels own college b-ball and Rick Barnes.