STARKVILLE — Mississippi State University head men’s basketball coach Rick Ray has already started looking to the 2014 recruiting class.
In an exclusive interview with The Dispatch nearly one month ago, the Bulldogs first-year coach said the critical goal of his staff is to have a Top 25 ranked recruiting class two year from now.
“Too many people think you can just walk into a situation and suddenly you’re winning 25 games a year and going to Final Fours,” Ray said in May. “That’s not how it works for anybody. You have to have a plan to get there and then trust the plan when executed will work as you go.”
As an assistant at Purdue University under head coach Matt Painter, Purdue won 103 games during Ray’s four seasons and reached the Sweet 16 twice. He helped the Boilermakers sign the Class of 2006 that included All-Big Ten Conference players Robbie Hummel, E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson.
Ray and MSU’s first move to create that nationally ranked recruiting class is the verbal commitment of in-state guard Maurice Dunlap.
“You don’t always get second opportunities at a chance like this,” said Patricia Dunlap, Maurice’s mother. “We let him make his decision because he is the one that has to go to school and he’s the one that has to play. We wanted him to be happy with where he is going.”
BulldawgJunction.com was the first to report this story Wednesday.
“In talking to the coaches they we really focused on my education and that is important to me,” said Dunlap, who became MSU’s first commitment for the 2014 class. “They seemed to really care about me as a person and that’s what made me feel like committing.”
The Amada Elzy High School in Greenwood combination guard averaged 16.1 points per game last season for the Panthers that finished with a 23-5 record. Dunlap said the plan from the MSU is creating him into an aggressive scoring threat at the college level.
“They want to make me a premiere scorer,” Dunlap said. “They will use me as more of a shooting guard. I’m a jump shooter most of the time.”
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