Miller nabs yet another guard for 2014

According to North Star basketball blog's Twitter feed, 6-foot-3 guard Miles Cartwright from Loyola High School in Los Angeles has committed to Penn.This is astoundingly Penn's seventh reported verbal commitment to the class of 2014 and its fifth guard (with nobody who appears to be a true point guard to eventually back up Zack Rosen). North Star called it "a fantastic get for the Quakers."

The twitter posts call Cartwright a big-time scorer, and the stats I've found definitely support that. He led Loyola in scoring last year when they went to the state regional finals. I couldn't find his scoring average but I did read that he scored 40 points and dished 10 assists on Dec. 12, 2008 against Centennial High School (Corona). He also had a 37-point game. As a So Cal kid, he faced fellow recruit Austin Kelly and Harvard-Westlake twice and split the series.

Continue after the jump for more information on Cartwright from ESPN and some blogs, and my own analysis of the news.

ESPN's Scouts Inc. rates Cartwright as a 90, which is by far the highest rating of any of the seven recruits (Dau Jok - 80, Kevin Panzer - 78, Casey James - 76, Cameron Gunter - 75, Austin Kelly - 74, Steve Rennard - 70). It's actually the highest in years (2009: Carson Sullivan - 86, Brian Fitzpatrick - 80, 2008: Rosen - 78, Loughery - 75, Howlett - 70, Hunt - 70, Belcore - 40). I haven't followed ESPN's recruiting services for long enough to know how good their ratings are, and the most recent analysis of any player was a July 2009 update on Jok (the next closest was way back in September 2008 on Kevin Panzer.) I'll also add that in retrospect 78 and40 seem low for Rosen and Belcore, respectively, while 70 for Hunt is way too high. That said, seeing a Penn recruit rated 90 overall by ESPN made me gasp.

Here are some highlights from ESPN's analysis on Cartwright: compared to Gabe Pruit (Boston Celtics), called a mid-to-high major level prospect, great length but frail frame, outstanding shooter, good finisher inside, good ball handling but not a natural point guard yet (more of a combo right now), doesn't have great speed or quickness but is crafty offensively and has a knack for scoring, must improve passing and decision-making to play the point in college.

This blog by College Hoops Net says that Cartwright considers himself a combo guard who can "do a little at both positions." He played the point at Loyola as their go-to guy, but he was in a supporting role as an off-the-ball player for his AAU team, California Supreme, which sent players to USC and UCLA this year.

The blog also indicates that Cartwright was very interested in going to an Ivy League school (he has a 3.7 GPA). “Academics come first with the schools,” he said. “I also have to fit in with the players and the coaches. I’m going to live there for four years – the other students, location, city and school support has to be right.” Penn and Princeton were among his top choices, while he also looked at Stanford, California, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah and Portland State. It says he wanted to stay on the West Coast, so I guess he couldn't get an offer from Stanford and was serious enough about academics to decide on Penn. He attended the Pennsylvania Elite Camp in June.

I found out about this around 4 a.m. and unfortunately I don't really have much time this week to try to confirm it on my own, but I will relay any further confirmation as I hear it. If this kid turns out to be as good as he sounds, Miller might have put the icing on an already sweet recruiting cake. I wonder where he'll find the time to play all these guards next year, but I don't question stockpiling talent wherever you can find it. That certainly seems to be his strategy with seven recruits seemingly in the bag. The next most extensive class in the Ivy League (according to reports) is Princeton with four verbals. I've been trying to get an interview with Miller to ask about all these recruits, but he's been quite busy, well, recruiting. He also can't talk about these kids yet, but I'll get his input as soon as I can.

Looking at where he might go from here, I still think Penn needs a legitimate big man. Maybe Miller really thinks Gunter is that guy. North Star called him a "glue guy" but he's not the post presence offensively that the Quakers hope to get out of Andreas Schreiber this year and need to find after he's gone next year. But there's no reason to believe that Miller is done. After the Jok commitment I didn't think we'd see another guard, but I thought we might see one or two more guys at PF/C. I know there have been some big men visiting in the last week or two, but I don't know specifics yet. Lord knows what will happen next.