Welcome Eric Waterford!!!

Looks like we've used our final scholarship on Eric Waterford, a 6'0" point guard who played last season in the same New England prep league as John Hegarty. Looks like assistant coach Mike Wolf's east coast connections have really helped out the Pilots this recruting year!

After making a huge impact for the Modesto Christian Knights as a basketball phenom, 19-year-old Eric gave his dad the best Father's Day gift ever when he secured a full-ride scholarship to the University of Portland to play basketball in the super-competitive West Coast Conference.

Eric took a year after high school to attend the St. Thomas More Prep School in Connecticut where he could continue to grow in more ways that one.

"My objective was to become bigger, faster, and stronger athletically, while growing emotionally, physically, and morally," Waterford said. "Attending Prep School allows one year of post graduate experience without losing any eligibility at the collegiate level the following year."

http://www.mantecabulletin.com/main.asp?SectionID=11&SubSectionID=11&ArticleID=58284

My gut tells me he will be a candidate to redshirt, since Ito and Campbell will both be juniors this year. I like the idea of bringing in our point guard of the future now to work with the team for two years under the tuteledge of Ito and Campbell before taking over the reins his sophomore year.

You can see more about Eric here, at a website he made for his recruiting. A pretty cool highlight video is on there:

http://www.ericwaterford.com/

He's originally from Modesto and played for Modesto Christian along with Reeves Nelson, who is one of hte top prospects for this season and has verballed to UCLA. You have to pay attention, but you can see him in this clip along with Nelson playing against Greg Somogyi's (remember him?) team in HS:

http://www.berm.co.nz/cgi-bin/video/play.cgi?XdqNOkPmzwA

Pretty cool. Welcome Eric!!!

And here's a pic... sorry it's not the best quality, but I had to cut/paste from a print screen... darn that flash!

Love it!!! Its great having him get an extra year in prep school to develop, and be the understudy to two solid PGs for 2 whole seasons, not to mention follow that up with 3 whole years of eligibility!!! Not to mention the red shirt season can be used to fully adjust to the college academic setting while at the same time integrating with the team..... All in all sounds pretty exciting

Let's not stick him on the bench for a year just yet. His video's indicate he can shoot. We need a guy like that. Of course, the videos wouldn't show any misses, would they?

Haha indeed... Where is the blooper reel?? I love me some vintage basketball blooper reels...

That is a pretty coole website. This kid looks pretty good! Smooth, basketball fluid, looks pretty funamentally sound from what I could tell. I'm not so sure he redshirts this year. This guy can play right now, but he may indeed redshirt just because of who's ahead of him. Rev certainly addressed the depth issues at PG- both short term and long term - with this class.

Thanks for the find Stonehouse.