Something Stinks In Fitchburg
Saturday, September 03, 2011
You want to know what I’m hearing regarding Ricky Ledo? Here it is.
Ledo, a Providence native, wants to come home to play basketball. He wants to be a Friar. In fact, some say it may be possible for him to enroll at PC for the second semester.
Whether or not that’s the case, Ledo likes Friars head coach Ed Cooley. And why not? In all of my years of covering college basketball, I would say that Ed Cooley may be able to relate to the youngsters he and his assistant coaches recruit more than any other head coach that I have been around. That is, by no means, a slight to any other coach, but more of a tribute to Cooley and where he has come from.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTSo Ledo wants to go to PC and by all accounts he really likes Ed Cooley. Want more? Try this one. His family really wants him to play at PC for obvious reasons. They will get to see him play live and in person if he plays at Providence. What’s not to like about that?
So why, then, hasn’t Ledo committed to PC yet? Good question.
The only person to go on record as to why Ledo hasn’t committed to PC is his head coach at Notre Dame Prep. Ryan Hurd is his head coach and he apparently is advising Ledo not to “rush” into any type of decision.
That would be nice if that truly was Hurd’s only reason, but some people are questioning his motives at the moment.
Apparently some believe that Hurd may be trying to steer Ledo toward the University of Pittsburgh which, as of the moment, isn’t on Ledo’s list of 5 finalists. Providence, UConn, Syracuse, West Virginia and Kentucky are Ledo’s final five according to him. Is Pitt trying to get into the game late? Who knows.
But if that’s the case, here is the disturbing part of the story.
One of Jamie Dixon’s assistant coaches is Bill Barton who replaced Pat Skerry on the Pitt coaching staff. Barton is a New England native with extensive East Coast recruiting ties so it makes sense that Dixon would want him on his staff. New England is a hotbed of high school basketball talent with all of the prep schools in the region and Barton is tied directly into that network.
But here’s the rub. Barton essentially built the Notre Dame Prep (Fitchburg, MA) basketball program into a national powerhouse in his ten seasons there from 1997-2007. See the connection?
Is Hurd trying to steer Ledo to Pittsburgh to help his buddy Bill Barton? Your guess is as good as mine. But if you listen to some people, they will tell you if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck!
I say, let Ricky Ledo make his own decision. If he wants to go to Pitt, so be it. If it’s the Carrier Dome he desires, good luck to him. And if he want to come home to Providence, he should.
This should be Ricky Ledo’s decision and no one else’s.
