cook to Georgetown

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Ashanti Cook Will Enroll At Georgetown,
Joining Bowman--(July 5, 2002)

Yesterday's edition of the Washington Post confirmed that Ashanti Cook (6'-2" PG) who graduated from Westchester this past month, and who originally signed a National Letter of Intent with New Mexico, has enrolled at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., where he will join fellow Westchester teammate Brandon Bowman, who signed with Georgetown last fall and who also graduated from Westchester this past month.

The article (below) appears to suggest that Cook will be immediately eligible to assist the Hoyas, but there may be a slight hitch to this: Cook signed a National Letter of Intent with New Mexico, intending to play under former coach Fran Fraschilla. But when Fraschilla was fired, and Ritchie McKay was hired as the new man at New Mexico, Cook began to have second thoughts. After much back and forth, New Mexico eventually granted Cook his "qualified release."

This was sort of a good-news, bad-news thing: Under the rules applicable to the "National Letter of Intent" program (which really has nothing to do with NCAA rules regarding eligibility, and is not run by the NCAA, contrary to popular belief), a recruit who signs an NLI with a school that participates in the program is ineligible to play at any other NLI-member school for a period of two years, unless the original school grants a "qualified release" in which case the penalty is reduced to just one year.

There is a procedure (an appeal procedure) where the National Letter of Intent appeals committee (again, this is NOT the NCAA, nor is the NCAA involved in any way in this process), can grant a total and unconditional release to the athlete if it is found that exigent circumstances exist for the non-enrollment at the original school, but those conditions usually relate to illness or death in the recruit's family or other circumstances well-beyond the signee's control. Typically, a change in coaching staff is not one of those circumstances which will get an athlete a full release, and the reasons for that are self-evident if you understand why the NLI program exists in the first place: The program is designed to bind an athlete to a school, not to a coach, and in fact, the program actually penalizes a player when the coach leaves to take another job or gets fired.

In any event, the Washington Post story is below, for what it's worth.

College Basketball
Georgetown Gets 'Lucky,' Lands Cook
By Ken Denlinger
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 4, 2002; Page D02

Georgetown confirmed yesterday that guard Ashanti Cook of Westchester High in Los Angeles has enrolled at the university.

Cook, 6 feet 3 and 175 pounds, is expected to battle sophomore Drew Hall for the point guard spot, which will be the only starting position up for grabs at the beginning of practice for next season. He averaged 13 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 steals last season on a team that won the state title. Cook had committed to New Mexico but changed his mind after the school made a coaching change.

"He sort of popped into our lap, so we were lucky," Georgetown Coach Craig Esherick said. "He was one of the better point guards in California, and that's saying something."

The Hoyas' other scholarship freshman, 6-8 Brandon Bowman, was a teammate of Cook's. Esherick described Bowman as a good defender who could play either forward position.

Esherick said senior forwards Courtland Freeman and Victor Samnick and junior forward Mike Sweetney will be the team's tri-captains.

Also, Esherick said that two former Hoyas, point guard Kevin Braswell and center Jameel Watkins, will be playing in a NBA summer league with the New Jersey Nets and Seattle Supersonics, respectively.