Provo » All-American guard Jimmer Fredette is back in the fold for another year after testing the NBA waters, and junior college transfer Stephen Rogers has been lured away from rival Utah State.
Prep superstar Kyle Collinsworth from nearby Provo High is already playing in pickup games with and against his future teammates, and flashy but inconsistent guard Michael Loyd Jr. has been kicked off the team, but not the campus, nor the pickup games, oddly enough.
Brigham Young's basketball roster for the 2010-11 season is finally set, solidified to the point that coach Dave Rose is on his first real vacation since last June's awful news broke that he had a form of pancreatic cancer.
Sounds like a perfect time to size up the next crop of BYU basketball recruiting targets -- guys who are just finishing up their junior years of high school.
Coaches cannot comment on specific recruits until those players have signed national letters of intent with their schools, but through a variety of sources, The Tribune has learned where Rose and his staff are focusing their efforts this spring and summer, the periods when college basketball recruiting is at its peak.
BYU's basketball recruiting pool is still roughly the same, and two-fold: Players from all around the country who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- the church that owns and operates BYU -- and players from Utah, LDS or not.
But there's a bit of a twist this year.
To date, two players from the class of 2011 hold scholarship offers from BYU: A sharpshooting Fredette clone (coaches hope he is, at least) from Washington state who is not LDS, and a rangy, athletic wing from South Carolina who is.
First is Brett Kingma, a 6-foot-2 guard from Jackson High in Mill Creek, Wash. He also has offers from a half-dozen or so other schools, including Gonzaga. Kingma made an unofficial visit to BYU last weekend with his father, Gregg, a former All-American at Seattle Pacific University.
"BYU is still at the top of my list," Brett Kingma said. "I want to make sure I make the right [college] decision, though, so through the summer I will let everything come in and not really narrow it down too much. ... I want to make sure that the schools that are talking to me, that they really want me."
Suffice to say, the guard who averaged nearly 25 points a game as a junior found out the Cougars really want him. A source close to the coaching staff says BYU is intrigued by his athleticism, ball-handling ability, shooting and, just as importantly, willingness to abide by the school's strict honor code. A new NCAA rule that allows coaches to have a more active recruiting role -- called "serious recruiting discussions" -- when prospects who paid their own way are on their campuses enabled Rose and his assistants to spend a lot of time with the Kingmas last weekend.
BYU's other primary target is DeMarcus Harrison, a 6-5 combo guard from Greenwood, S.C., who is attending Christ School in Arden, N.C. Harrison said last week that he also has offers from Wisconsin, Virginia and the College of Charleston.
"BYU and Virginia are probably recruiting me the hardest," he said, noting that he is "definitely, definitely interested" in BYU and that Cougar coaches have been attending his games and practices and talking to him for several years..
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Cougars targeting next crop of recruits
| Player | Hgt. | Pos. | Hometown/H.S. |
| Brett Kingma | 6-2 | Guard | Mill Creek, Wash. |
Jimmer's replacement?
| DeMarcus Harrison | 6-5 | Wing | Greenwood, S.C. |
Could be a top 100 recruit
| Tyrell Corbin | 5-11 | Guard | West High |
Son of Jazz assistant coach Ty Corbin
| Jared Smoot | 6-10 | Center | Crown Point, Ind.Late bloomer with potential |
| Corbin Miller | 6-1 | Guard | Brighton HighStarter since freshman year |
| Brant Mecham | 6-5 | Wing | Box Elder High |
Sharpshooter has offer from La. Tech
| David Collette | 6-8 | Center | Murray High |
A D-I prospect if rapid improvement continues
Note » Only Kingma and Harrison hold scholarship offers from BYU so far. The other players are receiving varying levels of interest from BYU.
