The Notre Dame men’s basketball team remains in great shape with one of its top targets in the 2012 recruiting cycle.
Orange, Calif., (Lutheran) guard Gabe York trimmed his list of schools to 10 last week and Notre Dame made the cut.
“The head coach is just really great,” the 6-foot-2 York said of Irish head coach Mike Brey. “I had really great conversations with him a couple of times. He was just real with me. I’m going down there June 20th for a visit. After I see it, they should make the top five too.”
York’s excited to see Notre Dame and has heard good things about it from those around him, including his grandparents, who visited the school when York’s uncle was considering going to Notre Dame as a swimmer.
“I just really want to see the campus,” he said. “From what everybody has told me, my grandparents included, Notre Dame’s campus is amazing, everything around it is really great. The grass is green and all that, so I definitely want to go and see if that’s true.”
York’s final 10 also includes Marquette, Kansas, Louisville, Memphis, Oklahoma, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut and UNLV. Notre Dame is one of the few schools in his final group that hasn’t officially offered yet, but it’s likely he’ll get offered when he visits.
York, a four-star ESPNU Top 100 prospect, was gracious to all of the coaches that were recruiting him, but relieved to be able to cut his list.
“I just don’t have 30 or 40 college coaches calling me anymore,” he said. “It was great and I’m thankful for every coach that wanted to recruit me and the process was amazing, but it was time to cut my list. It was really just me knowing and talking to those coaches more than all of the other ones and knowing what I know about the schools already without taking visits. Once I take all of my visits, that’s when I’ll bring it down to my five.”
York traveled to Washington last week and has a few others mapped out with more to come later this summer.
“The 20th and the 21st, I’m going to Notre Dame and Marquette,” he said. “I’m going to Arizona for a one-day thing. Those are the only four I have planned as of right now.”
He hopes to have his final five by the end of the summer and a decision could come a couple months later.
“I might do the early commitment in November.”
The recruiting calendar allows high school basketball players to sign National Letters of Intent twice during the year. Other dates to watch out for:
