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SIERRA VISTA — With the 2007-08 school year winding down, Cochise College head basketball coach Jerry Carrillo is busy rebuilding his team.
Among the first four scholarship players Carrillo has signed is Buena High senior forward Brandon MacLellan.
“We’re just excited to have him,” Carrillo said. “We’re pleased to see his progress. He keeps getting better and better and better and he seems coachable.”
MacLellan was the Class 5A Southern Region Player of the Year, leading the Colts in scoring and rebounding.
 Buena High School senior Brandon MacLellan signs his national letter of intent to play basketball for Cochise College Thursday afternoon at Buena High School. MacLellan was the 2007-08 5A Southern Region Player of the Year. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review) |
“If I was going to go juco it was going to be Cochise,” said MacLellan who was entertaining offers from Division II Western New Mexico University. “I’m trying to join a boxing class for cardio training and I’m in the gym all the time anyway. That, and I’m running because I know at Cochise, it’s going to be intense.”
MacLellan’s roommate at Cochise will be fellow Buena Colt Enrique Martan.
The 6-foot-4 Martan never played a varsity game at Buena because of a knee injury suffered his junior year and reaggravated it before his senior campaign.
Martan is an invited walk-on.
“I’ve never seen him play but he seems like a marvelous young man,” Carrillo said.
Martan said he’s been cleared by doctors for drill work and hopes to be cleared to play later this month.
Carrillo has also signed a pair of teammates from two-time Colorado Class 5A champion Denver East High School.
Five-foot-9 point guard Jamiko Verner and 6-foot-4 wing Demetrius Thornton are not only teammates, but cousins.
“He’s a pure point guard, the MVP of the Colorado State Tournament,” Carrillo said of Verner. “He’s got a great motor, he’s fearless and we hope he keeps developing.”
“(Thornton) is the juco prototype,” Carrillo said. “He’s 6-4 with long arms and he’s definitely got an inside-out game. He’s rangy and physically strong.”
Carrillo’s most recent signing is 6-foot-9 center Eric Neely, a sophomore transfer from Oxnard Community College in California.
“He’s our kind of guy,” Carrillo said of the former standout at Ribet Academy in Palmdale, Calif. “He plays hard, he can catch, run and play the post. He’s a good-sprinting post man; he doesn’t fatigue.”
As for outgoing Cochise sophomores, former Buena star Schuyler Witt is hanging up his basketball shoes to join the U.S. Marines, Dynile Forbes, who was named second team NJCAA All-American, has signed with the University of Louisiana-Monroe of the Division I Sun Belt Conference, where he’ll be joined by Cochise teammate Kenneth Begaye, who will be going there as a walk-on.
Mike Martin is likely to sign with Division II Adams State in Colorado.
Mike Helton may soon be signing with Hawaii-Pacific and Thomas Shumpert may sign with NAIA Campbellsville in Kentucky.
Carrillo, said he has plenty of recruiting yet to do.
“We’re going to keep turning over stones and trying to recruit guys — we don’t want to dip,” Carrillo said. “We feel as though 19-12 last year was abysmal for us. We’re happy with the four guys we’ve got in the hopper and now we’re trying to piece it together.”
Appreciation wrote on May 9, 2008 5:19 PM: