
With signing day on the horizon, Inside the Hall caught up with one of the best in the business, Dave Telep, for some national perspective on Indiana’s 2012 recruiting class.
Telep is a senior basketball recruiting analyst for ESPN.com and the former national director of recruiting for Scout.com. He’s covered recruiting since 1997. A transcript of our chat with Telep follows:
Alex Bozich: This is obviously the best collection of talent that Tom Crean and his staff have put together since arriving in Bloomington. What are your thoughts overall on the class and the impact it can make on Indiana over the next couple of years?
Dave Telep: I think the best part about this class is that it’s dynamic. There’s five different position players. I also think there are three guys that are going to eventually be starters. At least three who will be starters for Indiana at some point in their career. That’s a heck of a thing to get out of a recruiting class. Jeremy Hollowell, Kevin Ferrell, Hanner Perea should go in with expectation that those guys are going to have 12-to-15 years of starting experience between them.
AB: As far as the other two members of the class — Ron Patterson and Peter Jurkin — they both committed early. They’ve kind of fallen down on some of the national ranking lists. What have you seen out of those two specifically? Peter hasn’t played, but where do they fit in?
DT: Well Peter unfortunately has been really injured. With his setbacks, it’s been a lot of physical stuff so he hasn’t been able to get on the floor. I think with Peter Jurkin defensively, you look at a guy like Baye Moussa Keita at Syracuse, who kind of carved out a role with his length and his ability to protect the rim. I think that’s what you want Peter Jurkin to do. He’s not a scoring threat unless he’s getting a rebound or a stick back or catching an alley-oop. But in terms of a rim protector, he can carve out a niche.

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