Is it the water in Santa Clara County?

Kevin McCarthy
 

Talk about it in the Message Boards Is the bountiful bonanza a one-time thing? Just an anomaly? Or will it become the norm?

It being the Santa Clara County area churning out seven and possibly more Division I basketball recruits this school year.

Such a thing is unheard of for a geographic location that historically provides, at most, one or two basketball recruits to D-I college rosters a season.

Guard Collin Chiverton is one of four D-I signees at Mitty

First let’s run through the Silicon Valley 2007-08 harvest to date:

* Archbishop Mitty’s Drew Gordon to UCLA

* Archbishop Mitty’s Collin Chiverton to St. Mary’s

* Archbishop Mitty’s Enoch Andoh to Bucknell

* Archbishop Mitty’s John Adams to Lehigh

* Gilroy High’s Jason Conrad to Portland State

Plus, Oak Grove High has two seniors, Kelly Kaigler and Tyree McCrary, who will go D-1 although McCrary may have to go the junior college or prep school route first.

Knocking on the door are 6-6 Eric Heslin, who was at Cupertino High until he transferred to Summit College Prep (formerly Stoneridge) in southern California for his senior year.

Also, 6-8 Lorenzo Dobson and 6-3 Derek Jensen of Gilroy High are possibilities who will need further development time but could end up on an NCAA roster sometime in the future.

Now it’s not like there has been a relocation of prospectsthe moving in of star players that sometimes takes place elsewhereinto Santa Clara County. Housing costs alone would generally prevent such from taking place. Only Andoh’s move from Arizona a couple of years back falls into this category as the others listed above have been situated in Silicon Valley for some time.

So, can a plentiful crop continue blooming in succeeding years?

The next line of prospects includes Bellarmine Prep’s 6-8 Niyi Harrison, a junior who has verbally committed to Santa Clara and Valley Christian’s Tim Harris, another sought-after recruit. These are the two obvious names for next season as take-it-to-the-bank prospects.

Coming up the ranks as possible collegians are Valley Christian’s Max Hooper, Amir Johnson and possibly Kyle Travis, plus Bellarmine’s Max Foder and Freddie Eberhardt. Tyler Olsen, Shawn Grant and Spencer Britschgi, all from St. Francis, are also steadily making a name for themselves.

Orange County’s Taylor King is now a freshman standout at Duke

So the judgment of Silicon Valley as a viable germinator for D-1 basketball talent must be that the 2007-08 crop is an aberration. The numbers in the future will drop back down to the levels of previous years.

What caused this current uptick is undeterminablejust call it a harmonic convergence for the young men and their families who just happen to reside in Santa Clara County.

As an addendum, what makes this subject all the more interesting is that while Santa Clara County is the fourth largest population area behind Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties, in comparison, the historical record and future projections accurately label Silicon Valley as a laggard at producing D-I recruits.