Willie Clayton, a 6-8 senior power forward from Thomasville (Ga.) High, committed to the 49ers today.
Clayton is ranked 47th in the country among power forwards by ESPN.com. He chose the 49ers over Mercer.
He's the second commitment picked up by coach Alan Major for 2012. Shaun Lester, a 6-2 shooting guard from Mooresville, gave Charlotte a verbal commitment a few weeks ago. Lester and Clayton made their official visit to Charlotte together.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Power forward commits to 49ers
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51 comments:
Great news! Welcome to Charlotte Mr. Clayton!
this is a great signing.. Way to go Coach Major!!
Welcome to NinerNation. We need you!
Great pick-up! Welcome to Chaqrlotte Mr. Clayton!
Clayton had quite a few other "big name" offers and interest. Charlotte and Mercer (his hometown school) were just his final 2.
Welcome Mr. Clayton. Look forward to seeing what you can do with the 49ers.
Strong pickup by the coaches. They have done a good job picking out who they want to go after and bringing them in.
I guess it was hard to choose Charlotte over Mercer? Come on you guys this is a horrible pickup.
If we can't win out against the likes of Mercer we're in deep trouble niner fans and alum!
There was a much longer list of schools recruiting him. Mercer wasn't the "biggest name" on the list.
He is an 89 on scout and espn and he is 47th at the PF position on ESPN.
Its a good pickup no matter what you naysayers say.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/uga/basketball/recruiting/player-Willie-Clayton-106125
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/98636/willie-clayton
Great pickup. He had BCS offers, just discarded them earlier in the process. Willie was first team all state in Georgia as a Soph and a Jr. If you know anything about the talent in Georgia, that is a big deal.
Congrats to Willie and Charlotte!!! Huge pickup!!! BIG FUTURE FOR CHARLOTTE!!!!!!!!!111
Man up, don't hide behind that anonymous tag if you going to talk smack.
These Anon guys talking smack are the same one who are in Chapel Hill and Raleigh on Saturday.
Great signing!!!! The future is looking very bright in Charlotte! Great class Coach Major!!
This is a GREAT Pickup! What your you trolls talking about? The guy played on Team USA Under 17!! Pretty sure Team USA does not take the dredges of the league. This program is heading in the right direction and there is no denying that!
Another big commitment! These guys know how to recruit! Welcome to Charlotte and the A-10 Big Will!
Very happy to see Clayton commit. He was pursued by a number of the "BCS" programs (including Florida, Indiana, Alabama, and home state Georgia), and decided against them. But I guess some anonymous posters want to hide while they hate because......wait, why do you care? Pretty pathetic.
Real 49ers fans sure don't, we're excited to see how the coaches start developing all these young players.
Uh dude: YOU are anonymous as well. ROTFLMAO. I just love to watch you guys get all sensative and offended. My name is Mike DeSarono...so wut of it? I'm not scared.
mike desarono if you don't care about charlotte then why the hell are you even on here?
Mike Desarono? Really? I think you meant Disaronno.....wow way to pick a fake last name, and "Not being scared". If you UNC-Chapel Hill kids aren't scared why are you on our blogs!?! Besides didnt you guys lose to Dayton in the NIT? And if you are a UF fan.... ROLL TIDE!!
Fark you Mike Desarono.....I'm John Simpson you freaking troll
Clayton had interest from a number of BCS programs, including that Harvard of the South, University of Florida. He chose between Charlotte and Mercer because he felt those were the two that would prepare him best for life after basketball. That makes him very much more mature than some of you hating trolls on here.
Welcome to Niner Nation Willie Clayton!!!
WOW! This is a great pick up! whats not to like about a 6-8 225 pound PF, who according to ESPN "Brings it"!! This is great news.
Wellcome to CHARLOTTE WILLIE!!!
Lets stick it to these HATERS!!
Wow, what a waste of time. I'm here as a fan of the Niners. Mike Desarono is here to troll newspaper comment sections on articles about another team's recruit to get his kicks, because apparently he has nothing better to do. Keep digging that hole, Mike! Every time you log in, you just look more pathetic.
Why did the Observer not simply list the other schools that offered? This player was offered by numerous big name schools. Wait. This coverage is par for the course when it comes to the Observer's nonstop attempt to put the Niners down. What as I thinking?
Willie will be an awesome addition to a solid class being built by Major and Co.
"Willie Clayton, Thomasville: The 6-foot-8 junior averaged 17 points and 9 rebounds, and he is being recruited by UGA, Florida State, Auburn, Memphis and Stanford. Clayton has a 3.8 GPA."
- From local Georgia media, http://blogs.ajc.com/georgia-high-school-sports/2010/06/17/four-georgia-basketball-prospects-are-showcased-at-fiba-championships/
I am very proud to have him represent my alma mater! Looking forward to watching you play Mr. Clayton!
Welcome to Charlotte Willie.
I want Charlotte to win. And I hope Willie Is the second coming of "Cornbread". And I wish Charlotte was headed in the right direction.
But I believe none of the above. And for those sensitive Niner fans fearing trolls, I didn't see any of you when I was at the A-10 tournament proudly wearing my Niner colors.
Anon 11:32
What do you have to be so negative about right now? The team is adding size and skill players. There really is NOTHING to be so negative about at this point. Start moaning and grumbling if we start losing during the season. Till then we have a much more physical and talented team then last year; and we're building a football stadium, relax and enjoy.
I'm glad you could take a week off work to go to Atlantic City, but that's not a realistic destination for most Niner fans, and it certainly isn't a good family trip; which is what most people do with their vacation time. If you're mourning over us not joining the CAA, don't. We have bigger fish to fry.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Like some other posters have asked, why did the Observer not also list some of the big names the Niners beat out for this player. This is a highly rated player, yet this blog makes him seem not as good. And why a BLOG instead of a regular article like other teams get? Can't the sports editor get over his hatred of the 49ers and try giving them credit on occasion?
I caught a lot of flack here the last time Scott posted about this guy, because I wasn't all that impressed. I'm still not all that impressed.
I went to UNC Charlotte. I have paid a ton of money to be a Niner fan. I want all of our teams to go undefeated every year. And I would love to be proven wrong in 3 years and have to come on here and admit it when he blows up. But consider the numbers. He's the 47th-best power forward. That's just 1 position. There are 4 others. So this kid is at least the 235th-best player. With 13 available scholarships per team, that's 3.25 per year. So the 235th-best player would go to the 73rd-best team. Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions, guys that are ranked low or drafted low and go on to be all-world. And I'm not saying this kid is a bum. I'm just saying it's not a reason to start crowing and beating our chests over. Not yet, anyway.
During the Melvin Watkins era and first half of the Bobby Lutz era, we managed to land 1 or 2 guys who ranked in the top 100 every year. That's why we got to half a dozen NCAA tournaments in those 8 or 9 years. I'd like to think we can get back to that.
I'm going to hope that Major is recruiting "system players" who may not be highly ranked but fit perfectly into his philosophy and that such players can translate into wins on the court and get us back to being relevant again. If that happens, we'll get some top 1000 players. If it works out that way, I'll be happy to admit I was wrong for not being too excited about this player.
J, your math assumes a couple things:
1) That the positions are equally deep (so 47th best PF is same as 47th best sg), which they are not this year.
2) That the rankings are accurate and unbiased. They can be ok (the top 10 is almost certainly better than ~200 ranked player), but the rating services do seem to drop a lot of recruits once they choose to eliminate power conference teams from their lists, which is what happened to Clayton after he narrowed to Mercer, Charlotte, and South Florida, since he was top 100 not that long ago. This guy had offers from some very good schools. Maybe he still was only 47th best, but I'm skeptical of the recruiting services motives to drive up subscriptions among schools with bigger fanbases. I think he would've been kept higher had he continued his interest in Florida, Florida St., Georgia, etc.
We'll see how it works out, you never know how they will play and develop once they get here. I do hope you're wrong. Niners could use a few good years to escape the Lutz downward spiral.
ESPN had Clayton in its Top 100 just a few months ago.
Jimmer Ferdette, Emeka Okafor, Delonte West, etc etc -- guys who didn't crack a top 250..
He's 47th at his position. Which means there are 46 sophmores better than him, 46 Juniors better than him, and 46 Seniors better than him at his position. Plus there are 4 other positions to be considered. With that math he is the #737 ranked player.
Could it be that he indeed backed away from some major schools because they offered him a scholarship to be third string, but he wanted immediate playing time?
I don't fault him for his decison and will be pulling for him, but it's nothing to write home about; and diffently nothing that would motivate you camp out in a tent in order to buy a ticket.
I was at the last A-10 Tournament Charlotte played in and we looked like boys againt men, so I am glad we are getting bigger; but a major part of the goal should be to also get better.
And as far as Atlantic City not being a place to bring a family. I have been to many Tournaments and can't recall any of them being a major family outing. There is this thing called school that most kids have to attend during tournamnet time.
Excuse me (my bad)that should have been #920 ranked player.
10:57.......uhhh No!....wow, are you really that clueless about how these rankings work.
10:57.....you lie, badly. The last A10 tourney Charlotte played in was in 2010 vs. UMass and the game went down to the last second, literally.....nice try!
I assure I was there and I never mentioned a score I assure you not only did I think we looked like boys against men, I expressed that to Lutz in CO the day after the game.
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