Wannamaker is an excellent ball handler and defensive player who uses his strong body to carve out space on his drives. He also has a high basketball IQ and a relentless work ethic.
Wanamaker (I’m seeing it spelled with one and two “N’sâ€) is from Philly and is defined as a combo guard. He’s 6-foot-3, 200 pounds. Scout gives him three stars.
Here’s a highlight video I found of Wanamaker. It’s worth checking out. From what I can tell he is comfortable coming off the dribble and finishing close to the rim. He can certainly create his own shots. Unfortunately, I saw very few highlights of him shooting jumpers and only one was from beyond the 3-point line. Maybe it was just the editing.
Or maybe it wasn’t — here is a coach’s analysis of Wanamaker.
We asked Coach Grisham to described the star guard, “He is almost 6-foot-4 inches tall. He is definitely a No. 2 guard. He might remind you of Mitch Richmond in style. He is a big strong guard.”
Coach Grisham went on to say, “He is athletic enough to guard a point guard if he has two but is strong enough to guard a wing player. He is almost unstoppable going to the basket. He is very aggressive on defense. He still needs to work on him jump shot but he has good form so it will come.â€
A lot of sites have him listed at 6-foot-4. This short note confirms his strong build:
Wanamaker is simply ripped. He has the shoulders and biceps of an NBA player, and he is really quick getting up and down the floor.
Wannamaker’s verbal may hurt Pitt’s chances of landing another guard they were targeting (this from and earlier report).
Wannamaker would fit the Panthers quota for guards in this class, but 6’1″ CHRIS WRIGHT of St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C. is one of the top five point guards in the 2007 class and would be too hard to pass up. Wright, who knows new Pitt director of basketball operations David Cox very well, is a Georgetown lean at this time but is scheduled to visit Pitt on September 16th.
To Pitt’s credit, you can’t wait on a guy like Wright who is being recruited by all the big schools.
With Pitt’s depth at guard all this guard recruiting may sound crazy (it did to me), but remember that these guys would be joining Pitt when Ramon is a senior and Fields is a junior. Shucks, they grow up so fast!
According to the same PSR article, Pitt is targeting six centers. Unfortunately, the Panthers will already be a year removed from the Aaron Gray era (did you hear he’s going pro after this year?).
Before Wanamaker, Pitt had already received one verbal from 6-foot-7 swingman Darnell Dodson.
Can’t wait until basketball!
BW gets his shot on and he is a 4 star with 5 star potential.
Reality says that Pitt will only get to the next level with some top 50 recruits mixed in with their recruiting classes. Classes which have gotten better with JD and THAT is the reality of it.
Test case, North Carolina, the won the title in 05 and lost the core of that team. They came right back this year.
George Mason/Marquette were anomolies. Ones who did not win it all and in Marquette’s case were not back there the next year. It would be a safe bet to say that George Mason will not go far in this coming year’s NCAAs if they even make them.
The George Mason/Marquette teams were just that, good teams! They were not blessed with an over abundance of blue chippers. The teams that are there year and year out are blessed with them.
I’ve said this before, but I believe Harris knew he was out of here in 2004 – and Bill Walsh has stated that he had been in talks with Harris over the two years before that. I suggest that DW’s approach has been a good one, he’s repairing connections to local high schools that had been almost completely ignored by Harris, and we’re getting recruits that would have not given PITT a second look before. So, it’s obvious he is building for the future, we’ll see if it has worked after this year. But even with all that we won five games last year, and were in the position to win two more. It may not have been what we all wanted, but it sure could have been an awful lot worse.
The fact that PITT’s administration has upped prices and set requirements for seats is disheartening though, and like every other sports team nowadays they are taking every advantage of fan’s loyalty when they can.
Sometimes chemistry is more important than the number of stars a recruit has. Wanamaker seems like a very good fit for the type of basketball we play.
All we need now is 2 big bodies. Hold the last ship for a high quality player, and we’re set for 2007.
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Also for the rest of the gang…I have some extra football tickets that might become available, if anyone is intersted give me a call.
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