New Mexico State finishes recruiting

It appears that Coach Marvin Menzies is finished with his 2008 recruiting with the addition of two new signees:

Menzies Adds Higgins and N'doye to Class of 2008
Las Cruces Sun-News
5/16/2008

LAS CRUCES — New Mexico State men's basketball head coach Marvin Menzies has signed Johnny Higgins and Abdoulaye N'doye to play for the Aggies in 2008-09. Higgins is a 6-1 guard from Baltimore, Md., and N'doye is a 7-foot center from Dakar, Senegal......

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Two commits
Jason Groves
Las Cruces Sun News
May 15, 2008

The Aggies received verbal commitments from 7-foot-1, 235-pound center Mouhamadou Abdoulaye Ndoye from Senegal and 6-foot-3 point guard Johnny Higgins, who played the last two years at Notre Dame Prep. According to Higgins' father, after Johnny Higgins visited the NMSU campus last weekend, he cut off the rest of his recruiting and will move to Las Cruces for summer school this summer.

Both players will receive scholarships and be on the Aggies roster next season.

Higgins is a player who will come in right away and compete for minutes. He's a prep school player, which means he's already competed at a high level. Ndoye is obviously a project type player that adds size. He originally signed with Duquesne to join a prep school coach, but after committing in early November, he was released from his letter of intent in early April.....

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Now take this for what it's worth. Here's a post -- anonymous of course -- in response to Groves' blog entry:

Anonymous said...

I don't know how excited you should get about Johnny Higgins. He should add depth to your guard position but I don't think he's better than what you have. I live in Pittsburgh and I am close to the Duquesne University basketball program. I asked the coaches why Johnny was let out of his LOI, especially when he was recruited there by his prep coach. The answer was that he wasn't good enough and that they needed to open up the scholarship to get a guard that is better. They said they felt that he wasn't a true point guard that they needed, but that he was a good kid. I had to agree with the coaches because I saw him play with the team when he came on his visit and I was not impressed, especially when I had heard so much about him the previous year. Even when he played at a tournament at Duquesne with his team, Notre Dame, he had 9 pts, 3asts and 6 turnovers. If he's not good enough for Duquesne University, I don't know how good he will be for NMSU. Seems like a good kid.

(Parsing The WAC) -- After doing a little research, it does appear that Duquesne had second thoughts, for whatever reasons, and did release Higgins from his LOI. The Dukes then immediately announced the signing of a prep guard out of Alabama. The scenario laid out by Anonymous above appears spot on.