The Luke Babbitt watch about to begin

This kid is going to be fun to watch. We've seen him twice, once against Archbishop Mitty, and he is the real deal. He's not overly athletic but very fundamental and sound and has a shooting range that seems to extend pretty close to just over the halfcourt line. Okay, you got us, the latter was our channeling of Pamela McGee but it is fair to say that Luke Babbitt has range to 23 feet from the basket.

A couple of people have posted previous comments here that Babbitt is who he is because of the competition he has faced but that is simple abject ignorance and arbitrary fandom talking.

Pack basketball: Hard-working Babbitt comes to Nevada amid high expectations
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
April 20, 2008

With every shot, his aim improved. With every dribble, his ball-handling became more crisp. With every bench-press repetition, his body grew stronger.

He worked and worked until he became one of the best prep basketball players the state of Nevada has ever seen.

Galena High forward Luke Babbitt -- a soon-to-be member of the Nevada Wolf Pack -- is a self-made player.

"Luke is good because of Luke," said Aubrey McCreary, a player development guru who works with Babbitt. "Luke is good because he always wants to get better and never stops working."

Babbitt is the cornerstone of Nevada's 2008 recruiting class, the most heralded class in school history. He is the first McDonald's All-American to sign with the Wolf Pack, and the five-star recruit is one of only two All-Americans to sign with a non-BCS school.

He originally committed to play for Ohio State after his junior year of high school. The Buckeyes' Columbus, Ohio, campus was just 100 miles from Cincinnati, where he was born, and Ohio State was in the middle of a season that culminated with a trip to the national championship game.

"I kind of just got caught up after the visit," Babbitt said. "It was just a big-time program with Greg Oden and all those guys, so I just got caught up in that."

Months later, Babbitt started having second-thoughts and called Nevada coach Mark Fox to see if he could join the Wolf Pack. The answer, of course, was yes. A few days later, Babbitt switched his commitment from Ohio State to Nevada...

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