Just now during a ceremony at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, MD class of 2014 SF Dwayne Morgan verbally committed to the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels over the Maryland Terrapins and Georgetown Hoyas. Morgan is considered to be a five-star recruit by the 247Sports Composite and becomes the first commitment for UNLV in the class of 2014 joining fellow Baltimore products Roscoe Smith and Daquan Cook on the UNLV roster.
Morgan said he chose UNLV over Georgetown and Maryland because of the coaching staff’s dedication, the “crazy” fans and that the Las Vegas campus felt like home away from home. Morgan also noted, according to Jakob Engelke who attended the announcement for InsideMDSports.com, that there is a lot of pressure for hometown kids to stay local but he wanted something different, his own thing at UNLV. Morgan stated he knew he wanted to go to UNLV “a couple weeks after my visit”, Morgan took his official visit to UNLV in January of 2013.
When it came time for the announcement to take place the podium where Morgan made his commitment public was set up with two hats, UNLV and Georgetown, not three for final group Morgan had announced prior to this decision.
While the news heading into today’s announcement had sounded less than promising with regard to Morgan and the Terrapins, having only two hats present almost seemed to be the nail in the coffin of any chance he would be selecting the Terps. What we came to find out after the announcement had been made was that the Maryland coaching staff had, allegedly, backed off of Morgan as today’s decision date came closer.
Dwayne Morgan says Maryland barely contacted him near the end of his recruitment; UNLV and Georgetown were constantly in touch throughout.
— Edgar Walker (@Edgar_Walker) March 27, 2013
To me, this can mean two things; 1) The Terps coaching staff knew they were not likely to get Morgan to waver from UNLV and decided to move on to other prospects. Or 2) While Morgan would have clearly been welcomed, should he have wanted to attend Maryland, there were greater recruiting concerns out there for the Terrapins than adding another wing player when there is youth at the position with Wells, Layman and Faust already in the fold.
You can go ahead and watch Morgan’s announcement and his answers to the media members in attendance questions in the video below. Morgan is fairly candid with his answers to the questions concerning his recruitment. If you skip ahead to the :30 mark the video is no longer upside down.