·Free $500 appraisal credit on any purchase or refinance for you or any referral sent
·Accredited Better Business Bureau member
·NMLS # 1639493
Official visit update
All of the official visitors that were supposed to make it Ohio State did so this weekend. Dawand Jones was able to arrive in Columbus very, very early Saturday morning (not too long after midnight). He came in after his basketball game on Friday and apparently was able to receive word that he wouldn't have a game on Saturday, allowing him to come into Ohio's capital city a day early.
But the official visit didn't officially start until later on Saturday morning, which means it will probably be until Monday afternoon until we can track him down for an update and everything is wrapped up.
I like my Ohio State pick here, but have not yet received word on whether or not Dawand plans to continue to make other official visits. He has a slew of schools trying to land him right now and, except for USC, has his official visit available to him if he chooses to use it with two weeks left before the deadline.
Doug Nester was supposed to have an in-home visit with Penn State assistant Ja'Juan Seider tonight after returning home from his Ohio State official visit. I have not confirmed yet that it one-hundred percent happened, but it was setup prior to Nester leaving for Columbus so that will be a priority on Monday to get confirmation on that.
In talking to people, I'm not sure Ohio State has talked Doug out of future visits, at least the upcoming Penn State trip which is scheduled for this coming weekend. Things could absolutely change here in the next couple of days, but to the best of my knowledge, Doug hasn't told Ohio State he's shutting it down yet.
Again, should have more at some point tomorrow as most of these visits didn't start until Saturday morning so they're running a little later than usual.
My stance on Rogers
Some interesting visitor news over the weekend with 2020 Oak Park (Mich.) five-star offensive lineman Justin Rogers coming down for another unofficial visit. Ohio State cancelled its "Junior Day" activities this weekend but obviously wasn't going to turn Rogers away at the door of the Woody over the weekend.
I want to clarify my stance right now on Rogers in case there is any confusion. I recently switched my FutureCast pick to UGA for the five-star lineman. Now I do think that is where he would sign if he had to sign tomorrow, but if I could do whatever I wanted with the FutureCast tool, I would simply not have it on any single school right now. I put in a pick for Ohio State over the summer and once you do that, you can't just take it off and go back to square one, you have to set it on a school so, for now, it's on UGA. It's not a super high confidence pick at this point, but it's the best pick I think I can make based on where things stand right now.
The Dwan Mathis situation is going to make this a more difficult task for the Buckeyes as the two are pretty close and UGA had already been picking up momentum with Rogers well before the Dawgs were even in the picture with Mathis. So this will be a significant hurdle. But I do think there is still pretty serious interest from Rogers with Ohio State, they just have to rebuild some relationships there with the staff turnover, Mathis' departure, etc. But this weekend's visit was a good sign that the Buckeyes haven't completely faded out of the picture.
But again, this one probably won't be for the faint of heart. I think this one just about goes the distance and will keep people on their toes the whole way.
Flyin' to the Hoop notes
Spent the weekend in Dayton (actually not leaving until tomorrow afternoon) for the annual Flyin' to the Hoop Invitational which is one of the best high school basketball showcases in the country. There were a few unfortunate schedule changes due to the winter storm in the Midwest but still a few Ohio State recruiting notes nonetheless.
2020 center Zach Loveday is now at Huntington Prep and it is a huge adjustment for him in terms of the level of competition and just the general strength needed to play at that level. Zach has admitted he needs to get much stronger to hold up in the post against the caliber of bigs he is now going to play against with that type of schedule. He is a skilled big who likes to step outside and shoot and will start to earn more playing time at Huntington Prep as he gets comfortable there, this weekend was just his 2nd and 3rd games with the program since transferring in. Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann was there on Saturday evening to watch Loveday's game.
Got pretty good vibes talking to Loveday, Ohio State seems to be right there at the top for him and he mentioned being excited about the recent Michigan offer and how he would fit into that offense and also seems to like the hoops/academics combo of Purdue. I know there has been a lot of Louisville talk with him and I'm not dismissing that as I honestly don't know Zach well enough to do so, but they just didn't come up much with him for whatever reason.
On Sunday it was Ohio State assistant Ryan Pedon who was at the event. He watched super Akron Buchtel freshman wing Chris Livingston early in the day and also watched Garfield Heights sophomore guard Meechie Johnson in the night cap. Livingston already holds an Ohio State offer and is going to be a national recruit. He is a pretty special talent who is going to be the Buckeyes' top priority in the class. The Lebron comparisons are going to start (and kind of already have), and that's both unfair and unfortunate, but there's not much question that he's going to be one of the top hoopers to come out of Ohio in recent years. I'll have some video of him and an article on him within the next day or so.
For about 80% of the game on Sunday night it was a struggle for Meechie Johnson and Garfield Heights against Huber Heights Wayne. But trailing by 15 with just under four minutes to play, everything started to turn and Meechie and his teammates started to knock down some shots.
Meechie hit a three from the parking lot to pull it within two with about a minute left, then down three with about 30 seconds left he hit a step back three after crossing his defender so badly that he fell down. He then stole the ball a few seconds later and finished at the rim to put Garfield Heights up two in the final seconds and it would prove to be the game winner.
Will also have video of that performance and a story on Meechie in the next day or so. He is visiting Ohio State again on Wednesday for the game against Purdue.
