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Say you spent the last year, I don’t know, training for and then learning a new job and you’re trying to figure out what you missed on the recruiting front. I can sympathize with your plight; let’s get caught up on Xavier’s recruiting.
First of all, you probably remember that Xavier signed a five-man 2017 class that pretty much everyone agreed was the cat’s pajamas. You’ve probably since noticed that Xavier only has three freshmen on the roster. So... where did those other two guys go?
Jared Ridder transferred to Missouri State
Ridder, a 6’7” wing originally from Missouri, decided to head back home after just a month or so on the Xavier campus. Coach Mack said that “Jared has indicated to the coaching staff that he has a desire to be closer to home,” and the Muskies released Ridder from his commitment to the school. Xavier announced Ridder was leaving on September 23, and by September 27 he had committed to Missouri State.
Ridder was a wing noted for his ability to score in bunches as a high-level shooter. He profiled to grow into something similar to Kaiser Gates on the offensive end as a guy who could find space on the floor and be deadly in catch-and-shoot situations.
Kent Jones reclassified
A 6’11” big man originally out of Georgia, Jones was always a question mark to ever land at X despite having committed to the Muskies. He transferred between schools in Macon after his junior year and then transferred from Macon to the Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut midway through his senior year in an attempt to get his academics in order.
It didn’t work. The ins and outs of the situation are arcane, as they always are with the NCAA, but the long and short of it is that Jones wasn’t going to be able to play this year and decided to change classes. Xavier lost out on the big man’s services because of the decommitment, Jones has bounced between a couple of prep schools since reopening his recruitment.
That’s how the class of 2017 got to where it is. In our next installment of old recruiting news, we’ll take a look at the class of 2018.