Ivies say 'out with the old,' but recruits still in

The coaches who recruited them have left, but for three Ivy League recruits, none of that matters.

Dan Mavraides and Bobby Foley will still be playing basketball for Princeton despite coach Joe Scott leaving for Denver, and Adam Demuyakor remains committed to Harvard after coach Frank Sullivan was let go after 15 years on March 5.

Because for all three of them, the coaching staff was not the largest draw to the school.

In fact, Mavraides's coach at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, Malcolm Wesselink, doesn't see the Princeton head coach's departure as any sort of a turnoff.

"I don't think [Scott leaving] affected him at all." Wesselink said of the 6-foot-1 guard. "Joe got in late into the process, and I don't think that there was a real strong relationship that was built. . Dan really liked the school, liked the kids playing there and liked the opportuity, and I think that was what he was basing it on."

As for Demuyakor, he was mainly pursued by Harvard assistant coach Lamar Reddicks. He still had some contact with Sullivan throughout the process, and so the decision of Harvard's athletic department to cast off the 16-year coach and hire a new face for the program was more significant to the 6-5 forward Buford, Ga. native than it was for the players committed to Princeton.

"I thought about it for a minute," Demuyakor said yesterday. "I considered what this means to me, but I figured that if they were getting rid of him eventually, it might be better that they did it now before I actually went up to the school and started to play for him and get attached to him."

Foley's coach at Mills Godwin High School, Hunter Thomas, said the Richmond, Va. native is anxious to see who the new coach is, but will still be attending Princeton no matter what may arise.

But despite strong feelings in favor of sticking with the school each originally chose, other colleges still came knocking at the door.

Mavraides, a late commit to Princeton, got calls from a few schools, including Dartmouth, but that wasn't enough to stop him from heading to New Jersey to play his college hoops. His teammate, Josh Owens, was also recruited by Penn, but elected to attend Stanford instead.

Demuyakor, who had narrowed down his choices to Harvard, Yale and Wofford College, committed in October, at which point the other schools backed off of him.

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