There'll be a new Devin in town!

Devin Ebanks, consensus top 20 recruit for 2008 (and in some places a top-10 recruit!) has signed on to play for the Hoosiers. The sleek scoring 6-8 forward has been drawing comparisons to Kevin Durant (let's not get too excited just yet tho') and will join guards Bud Mackey and Eshaunte Jones on the IU Basketball floor in Fall 2008. Sampson is trying to land one more big man to round out what is becoming another very nice class.

IU has held up fairly well this summer, no major defections or NBA hopeful losses that will hurt next season. However, there is one area of concern, and that's the back-up center spot. Ben Allen didn't get a lot done, and while he's always got to potential to contribute more, IU fans were looking forward to top 100 center Eli Holman to provide some defense off the bench or Juco top 20 DeAndre Thomas to provide that second low-post threat. Thomas is reportedly over 300 pounds, and may not be able to help much until quite late in the year. Holman is still trying to get eligible with his test scores. It's a pair of question marks to watch this off-season, and if neither are ready this fall, Brandon McGee (a borderline top-100 recruit, the same as Patrick Ewing Jr. was a few seasons ago) may be asked to contribute a lot more right away.

Side note about preseason rankings, a lot of folks are giving UCLA top 4 rankings while Georgetown is quite lower. I'm not sure I think UCLA is so much better than Georgetown. They both lost scorers that made their offense run, but otherwise both clubs return nearly everybody from a Final Four team. I don't think the Hoyas defense is going to dip anymore than the Bruins, and I don't think either offense will particularly suffer from the losses they've sustained. UCLA got a couple of nice recruits, but the guards Georgetown picked should be as good as any frosh backcourt duo in the nation. I don't mind if the people think that UCLA will be better than Georgetown, but statistically we should expect two very good teams with very little separation between them.