Austin Rivers provided an update about his recruitment on HighSchoolHoop.com recently. After originally committing to Florida, the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2011 class decommitted on April 8th of this year. Rivers is still considering Florida along with UNC, Kansas, UCLA and, of course, Duke.
Rivers wrote:
I only get five official visits so I want to definitely go back to Duke. I’ve got to go to UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina and Florida, too.
Is it too much to read into the fact that Rivers listed Duke separately from the other four schools? Probably. But Rivers's AAU coach also says Duke is the current leader to land the shooting guard.
Duke fans will like Rivers's next words even more:
I still keep in touch with Coach K at Duke and Coach Donovan at Florida. I haven’t talked to Coach Williams at North Carolina, but he’s talked to my coach a few times.
It makes sense that Rivers would continue to talk to Donovan - he had already committed to Florida - but Krzyzewski is the only other coach that Rivers keeps up a conversation with. More good news for Duke fans.
The best news, though, may come in River's final thoughts:
I don’t really talk to any of the players at the schools that are recruiting me besides Kyrie Irving at Duke. I don’t really know the players at the other schools. But Kyrie and I talk about everyday things like when he’s going to Duke and what’s going on with him. We’re pretty tight.
Now, Irving has yet to spend a semester in Durham, but I'd be surprised if he isn't touting Duke to Rivers. The possibility of playing with Irving must sound pretty good to Rivers (and Duke fans) as well. Of course in the long run, none of this means much. Rivers has yet to take his official visits and those will certainly impact his decision. For now though, Blue Devil fans can look ahead to next year with the hope that 2012 will be bright as well.
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