10-24-2007, 06:49 PM
Saw this on a Kansas site, thought it was interesting. Anyone know the veracity of it or if its just hogwash?
Quote:I do not know if this is relevant to the current recruiting battles in any way, but since KU is trying for both Bobo Morgan and Willie Warren, you might be interested in this tiny little nugget of information.
Bobo and Warren used to actually play in the same AAU organization -- Team Texas. Jazzy Hartwell was an assistant with that club at that time. However, right in the middle of the summer he unexpectedly split off to form his own AAU program. I mean it occurred RIGHT in the middle of the summer when he did this. Caught Team Texas flat footed in a bad way. And unfortunately for Team Texas, Jazzy was able to successfully lure half of the TT program to leave with him. Bobo went with Jazzy, but Willie Warren stayed behind with Wes Grandstaff(#1 guy in TT).
Jazzy was also able to poach Darrell Arthur away with him at that time. Some of the local observers believe that DA was the lynchpin of the whole deal. Arthur wanted to go to some non-Nike camp(reebok, I believe), and obviously that would have been awkward with him belonging to a team accepting Nike sponsorship dollars. Another driving force was that Jazzy wanted to have his own AAU team. So voila. Jazzy, DA, et. al form their own group and pick up a sponsorship out of nowhere -- all at the expense of Team Texas.
Well, obviously that whole split was an extremely unexpected and devestating turn of events for Team Texas. Shoe clubs obviously live and die by their ability to attract potential future NBA'ers. And with the departure of Arthur, they were suddenly stripped of their marquis player. The loss of all the other players left TT 17's without enough warm bodies to even fill out a team. In order to finish out the season, they were forced to merge with a local scrub team.
Sooooooo.........is it possible that there still remains some bad blood over all that? Probably some. Are there any lingering effects in the recruiting of these two? I dunnow. But it makes for an interesting subplot. Bobo is Jazzy's boy, and Warren is one of Grandstaff's guys.