City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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From the time Eddie Scott was first offered a roster spot by Penn head coach Steve Donahue last December, he became a priority target for Donahue and the rest of the Quakers staff.

They stayed in touch with the Gonzaga (D.C.) product throughout the rest of his junior year and into the spring, even as he picked up offers from the likes of Rhode Island and Dayton in April, from Saint Joseph’s in May, and from George Washington in June. The Quakers’ staff stayed in touch, tracking him in July as he played with Team Takeover in the Peach Jam and other live recruiting period events.

That’s why Scott took his first official visit to Penn’s campus back in June, and why he ended his recruitment on Friday afternoon, committing to become a Quaker with a message he posted on Twitter.

“Of course it’s a great school, not to speak the obvious, but I just clicked really well with the coaches,” he told CoBL. “I’ve always bonded well with that coaching staff, they were one of the early ones to offer and they always showed me love, throughout the whole process, throughout getting new offers, throughout Peach Jam and all of that.

“I actually had planned to commit later,” he added. “I had earlier planned to commit closer to before the high school season actually started, but I realized that why wait, if I know what I want...what’s the point of waiting for it, why not just go ahead and get it?”

A 6-foot-6, 190-pound wing, Scott had a solid junior year, helping Gonzaga into the semifinals of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference, one of the tougher high school leagues in the entire country; DeMatha (D.C.), Paul VI (Va.), St. John’s (D.C.) and others make up the private school power conference.

On the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League circuit playing with Team Takeover, he averaged 4.2 ppg on a team loaded with high-major wings, including D.J. Harvey, Myles Douglas, Chyree Walker and Anthony Duruji -- as well as point guards Chris Lykes and Aaron Thompson, bound for Miami (Fl.) and Pitt, respectively.

Scott is the second member of Penn basketball’s incoming class next fall, though the first that’s a member of the high school class of 2017. Salt Lake City East (Utah)’s Mark Jackson, a 7-3 center, committed to Penn last October while a few months into a two-year Mormon mission to Paris.

They’ll be joining a roster that at the moment features rather large 2014, 2015 and 2016 recruiting classes, which add up to 19 players slated to be entering their sophomore, junior and senior years next fall.

Donahue and his staff have put together a team that is strong in its young classes, led by rising sophomores Jackson Donahue (9.7 ppg) and Jake Silpe (5.2 ppg, 3.3 apg), plus a talented incoming class that features Germantown Academy’s Devon Goodman and Northfield Mt. Hermon (N.H.)’s A.J. Brodeur.

Taking over for former head coach Jerome Allen in May 2015, Donahue’s instituted a more wide-open offensive scheme that looks for either 3-pointers or layups, with multiple shooters and shot-creators on the floor at all times.

“I like the way that Penn plays and I like their offense,” Scott said. “I can definitely see myself fitting into their offense, into their program, that was really important to me.”

It’s a program that’s still working to get back to its former glory days, when the Quakers were a perennial threat to make the NCAA Tournament. Penn has 22 appearances in March Madness --  including 10 in a 15-year span from 1993-2007 -- but hasn’t been back since then, with last year’s 11-17 mark in Donahue’s first season an improvement over the three that came before it.

Things will certainly change somewhat with the institution of a four-team league playoff for the first time ever this season, to be played at the school’s historic on-campus Palestra.

Scott mentioned that the coaching staff used the return to greatness as a selling point on its recruiting pitch, and he’s clearly someone who appreciates a strong hoops tradition.

“I didn’t have too much history about the Big 5 itself but I did know about the Palestra and the history behind that,” he said. “When I got back down to my area, I guess I inquired about it and I started to notice how big the Big 5 really is. When I talked to people around my way who were from Philly, they were like ‘I used to always go to those games, and the Palestra was so loud.’

“So I was like yeah, this has got to be home.”