Chris Murray with a lengthy David Carter watch

Chris Murray outdoes himself and 99% of other beat reporters with a pair of articles in today's Reno Gazette-Journal on Coach David Carter's recruiting activities this week in Las Vegas. What's really worth noting here is that it's a newspaper running this -- one not based in Lexington, Louisville, Lawrence or Charlotte. That is remarkable and great.

College basketball recruiting: The game within the game
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
7/26/09

LAS VEGAS -- His day starts around 9 a.m. with the thermometer already approaching 100 degrees. In this city known for its glitz and glamour, there won't be much of either today.

Instead, what lies ahead is 13 hours of basketball, traffic jams and overheated gyms. The mission? To evaluate as many high school basketball players as possible in a single day.

For the first time in his 20-year coaching career, Nevada's David Carter is making the rounds as a head coach. He is joined here by assistant coaches Doug Novsek and Keith Brown, and the Wolf Pack staff is canvassing the city, scouting as many players as possible.

In the first 10 days of the always-important July recruiting period, Carter visited Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Augusta, S.C., and Los Angeles twice. After spending five days in Las Vegas this week, he will head to Kansas City and Orlando before finishing the long month of recruiting back in Los Angeles.

But the center of the recruiting world right now is Southern Nevada, where a quintet of high-profile AAU tournaments have drawn hundreds of coaches and thousands of players to these Las Vegas gyms. So many coaches, players and parents are here that most rental car companies have run out of cars...

Go here for the remainder.