SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — College basketball’s early signing period begins today with National Signing Day and Tennessee is expecting three National Letters of Intent to sputter in from the fax machine.
Members of the UT staff expect the program’s three incoming freshmen to sign National Letters of Intent in the early period. The group is headlined by Dyer County High School guard Robert Hubbs III and bolstered by Buford (Ga.) High School combo forward A.J. Davis and Huntington (W.Va.) prep point guard Travon Landry.
Until the ink dries, UT coaches can’t comment specifically on any recruits.
Hubbs, widely considered a McDonald’s All-American candidate in his senior season, is the 15th-ranked player in the Class of 2013 by 247Sports. His verbal commitment on Sept. 18 was national news in recruiting circles.
Davis, son of retired 13-year NBA player Antonio Davis, announced his pledge to Tennessee via his Twitter account on the same day as Hubbs. He is graded 86 by 247Sports after averaging 13 points and 10 rebounds per game as a junior.
As for Landry, this week has been a long time coming. He verbally committed to UT as a junior at Bob Jones (Ala.) High School last December and has maintained his pledge after transferring to Huntington Prep this season. Landry now shares space on a roster littered with Division I talent. He, alongside four high-major teammates, will sign ceremonial letters of intent together on Thursday.
Brendan F. Quinn covers Tennessee men's basketball. Follow him at Twitter.com/BFQuinn
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Comments » 30
txvolsfan writes:
Love Coach Zo.
with a few more skins on the wall, he will have a lot of ballaz wanting to play for him!!!
GREAT JOB
GO VOLS
TXVOLSFAN
PHAT_VOL writes:
Great job coach ZO!!
Ironcity writes:
I have heard that Landrey is the best defensive PG in the country and that he is a relentless defender. The reson he isn't rated high is because no one rates defense during the summer evaluation season but most coaches realize UT got a steal here. I hope the info is right because UT needs another true PG and if he can defend, dribble and pass then I will be a happy guy.
sly_stone99#434111 writes:
Landry is the most solid point guard UT has had in a long time. Offense is sexy, but Defense wins games.
clvolfan writes:
Class act CCM,go get'm,and we will look for a great season.
ashvol7 writes:
Kinda makes you forget about Bruce Pearl and his lying ways and the trouble it caused. Coach Zo looks like the real deal.
SummittsCourt writes:
Nice to have some good news for a change!
mocsandvolsfan writes:
Looking good.
pcorange writes:
Way to go, Zo!
VolzsFan writes:
yes, I already forgot how the arena was empty until he came. The Arena was old until he renovated it. There was a parking lot where he built a nice practice facility. Turned them into a top 5 in attendance and scheduling. Made UT relevant with their first #1 ranking, gameday, Elite 8, several sweet 16s, NCAA tournament every year.
Yea, I almost forgot what that guy did.
More ignorant fans.
snafu14u#241639 writes:
Bingo. Good post and the real reason Pearl isn't here is Hamilton and the UTAD legal team didn't give Coach Pearl a heads up about what The NCAA thought they knew. That's the real reason. The whole Pearl situation never had to go that way. Believe me Coach Zo is a keeper and we are lucky to have him. BonzaiVol
Snapshot writes:
Bingo, you can't fix stupid!
tennrich1 writes:
Saved me the trouble...appreciate it...I agree word for word!!!
RockyTop1 writes:
Move on Pearl is not coming back, neither is Fulmer... Just a fact. Love the Zo Master!!
SouthPaVol writes:
welcome to our three new Vols. You guys are part of a rising Tennessee program and we are proud to have you with us.
Most Vol fans were pleased with Pearl's six years of success: his ability to recruit and make the Tennessee men's program relevant. It's unfortunate his tenure at UT ended as it did. Successes of the six Pearl teams are some of the best in our program's history.
CCM brings solid recruiting and coaching techniques built to win, and I think our team this year and next will be fun to watch. Unfortunately, Harris and Hopson declared for the draft, or last year's team would have started at a much higher level. I can only imagine Harris with Stokes and Maymon inside. Wow!
Now, I expect UT to move quickly into the top 25 this year, and hope our success will continue into a top 10 program. Solid recruits such as these three will help UT remain competitive into the near future. Go Vols!
VOLtage writes:
KNS why oh why do you not have like buttons like WATE does? Why not???
johnlg00 writes:
For the immediate future, Hubbs is clearly the big "get" in this class. I hope AJ Davis has a lot of steaks and milkshakes this year and haunts the weight room; the Vols could use big minutes from him next year if he is strong enough. If Landry is as good as everybody says, the PG position should be in good hands in the future, since I think Moore also shows great potential in the role. It wouldn't kill me if either of them were good enough that Golden could rotate to shooting guard next year, though I think he has done and will do a good job at PG. After all, there will be no more McBee after this year, and Hubbs may be good enough to play some small forward.
johnlg00 writes:
That is a great point. Defense is so much harder to quantify than offense. About the only defensive stats that seem to mean much to the rating services are blocked shots and steals, while good defense is so much more than those things. How well does a guy keep his man in front of him? How many passes does he deflect? How quick is he in help-and-recover? How does he rebound defensively for his position? A great defensive guard in basketball is just about as hard for stat-oriented recruiting services to evaluate as a great offensive guard in football. It takes a good coach who knows what he wants and how to spot it to give such a player his due.
johnlg00 writes:
There are no Vol fans who don't appreciate the good things Pearl did. The circumstances of his departure will likely be controversial forever among fans; look how many football fans are still angry for various reasons over the departures of Dickey, Majors, Fulmer, Kiffin, and will be over Dooley when/if he is let go. Pearl is gone and so is the guy who fired him. Martin had nothing to do with any of that. He seems to be a great guy and at least potentially a great coach. None of us needs to dwell on the past to the extent that we can't give Martin our full support.
johnlg00 writes:
Can someone refresh me on Landry's size? I don't care if he isn't big--there have been lots of great PGs at every level that aren't--but I would just like to know. Besides, if we need a bigger defender at times at the position, there are always 6'5" Moore and 6'7" Richardson to give them a different look.
VictorKruger writes:
Landry is 6'0" or 5'11" depending on your source. Moore has long arms, so he plays taller than he is.
I still chuckle whenever players heights are discussed because Melvin Goins expanded and contracted between 5'8" and 5'11" during his time here.
Tiger4Life writes:
what an awful class
mocsandvolsfan writes:
Yeh I agree. Maybe you should try harder.
VictorKruger writes:
Trolls should be ignored, and now there's a free browser extension for Firefox and Chrome that blocks trolls' comments on govolsxtra and knoxnews.com:
https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/...
Firefox users must install the Greasemonkey extension first:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fire...
Chrome users must install the Tampermonkey extension first:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/de...
johnlg00 writes:
I have expounded several times at great length on the fact that official height and weight stats are largely works of fiction until a player goes to a pro combine. In any case, basketball is as much a game of quickness, intelligence, and floor position as it is height and strength. This is especially true for a PG. If Landry has those former qualities, I don't care how big he is. I'm certainly not saying I wouldn't take a 6'8" Magic Johnson for my PG, but the 6'0" or so Isiah Thomas pretty much held his own against Magic.
johnlg00 writes:
PS, VK: Thanks for the info. The Vols seem to have a pretty fair number of those long-armed guys; the more the merrier, I say. Hubbs and AJ Davis also seem to be of that mold.
Tiger4Life writes:
no, our class was fine. # 2 or 3 in America depending on which service you look at. Signing the hometown hero from Briarcrest gave it a boost.
jhayes0926#638474 writes:
Pastner is like Dooley, can't beat the top 25
mocsandvolsfan writes:
I guess the"joke" about your personal"class" didn't take. So I'll just say that we're(UT) happy where we are. I didn't mind losing Nichols and we will get someone else. I hope he has a great career at Memphis. I'll never wish any kid bad luck.
That said I believe at this point we are in as good a shape as Memphis. We do have the maturity advantage.
OhioValleyVol writes:
I live in the Huntington area and Landry is a solid player. Go vols go!
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