The strange recruitment of Adjehi Baru

Adjehi Baru, a 6'9" native of the Ivory Coast, vaulted into the consensus top 50 after a terrific summer on the AAU circuit.

He has been drawing interest from schools like Kentucky, Maryland, and NC State, which is why everyone was left with an itchy head when reports started coming out on Saturday that Baru had committed to the College of Charleston. Dave Telep seemingly ended the speculation after speaking with Baru, who told him that he had not committed to a school and did not plan on doing so anytime soon.


Then on Monday, Baru sent out a press release via email saying that not only had he already committed to CofC, he had signed a letter of intent during the signing period, which ended a couple of weeks ago.

There's more.

Baru's legal guardian is Tim Branin. His son, Pat, is the same age as Baru. In fact, the way that Baru and Branin met was by playing on the same AAU team. Baru was living with the AAU coach when the Branin's offered to let Baru move in with them. He accepted and, apparently, became tight with Pat.

Here's the twist -- Pat was apparently only getting recruiting interest from a couple of D-III programs, but back in the fall he signed a Letter of Intent to Charleston. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Bobby Cremins, the CofC head coach, brought in Pat to land Adjehi. In fact, he admitted it to the Dagger:

"They're a very close-knit family," Cremins said. "I recognized right from the get-go that if I was going to have any shot at this young man, I'd be smart to bring along his teammate because they're a very close family.

"Pat can definitely help us in practice. Can he ever start here? Right now, no. But he can definitely help us in practice and who knows he might get better."

This isn't illegal. This isn't even frowned upon. In fact, it probably happens much more than we think. USC was able to land Demar Derozan because they gave a scholarship to Lil' Romeo. Will Barton's recruitment was likely influenced by Josh Pastner's decision to bring in Will's brother Antonio. Hell, I'd be curious to know how many of the programs that were recruiting Deuce Bello were doing so simply because they wanted Quincy Miller.

Kudos to Cremins for landing Baru. Its not often a player like Baru pops for the Cougars.