MaxWire National Blog

Colorado's burgeoning high school basketball scene took a bit of a hit Friday when star guard Josh Perkins of Regis Jesuit (Aurora) announced he will play at Huntington Prep (W.Va.) as a senior.

Perkins, a 6-foot-2, 175-pound point guard ranked pegged the No. 22 prospect in the 2014 class by 247Sports.com, averaged 25.2 points, 6.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game as a junior. Those gaudy numbers helped Regis Jesuit go 21-5 and earned him a spot on the MaxPreps Junior All-American Team.

247Sports national analyst Jerry Meyer believes UCLA is the team to beat in Perkins' recruitment. Baylor, Gonzaga, Kansas and USC are also in the mix.

Both Perkins and Huntington Prep head coach Rob Fulford confirmed the move via Twitter on Friday.

Fulford's upstart independent program has emerged as a national powerhouse virtually overnight. The Express featured top prospect Andrew Wiggins in 2012-13 along with four other Division I-bound seniors, going 30-3 against a schedule that featured teams from a dozen states and Canada.

Perkins isn't the only elite 2014 prospect headed to Huntington in the fall. Tennessee wing/forward Jalen Lindsey – ranked No. 46 nationally among rising seniors by 247 – will also join the Express next season.

247Sports.com's No. 6 2014 prospect Rashad Vaughn, a high-scoring shooting guard from Minnesota, is also considering attending Huntington Prep in 2013-14.

If Fulford's recruiting track record maintains form this summer, the Express are just getting started in the talent acquisition department.

A way to pass the time due to an early arrival at a playoff game ended up becoming an early exit from the Southern Section playoffs in California.

As reported by the Desert Sun, Shadow Hills (Indio, Calif.) traveled to Mary Star of the Sea (San Pedro, Calif.) for a second-round Division 6 playoff contest and players passed the time by doing some hitting. That violates a section rule, and it led to Shadow Hills having to forfeit a game it won 1-0 on the field, in extra innings.

Players left the game excited for a third-round game, and practiced Wednesday at school. Then they started seeing tweets.

They found out their season was unexpectedly over via the Desert Sun's Twitter account.

"We found out about 5 p.m.,” senior Dalilah Castillo-Herrera told the newspaper. “We thought we were playing Friday. We were all so shocked. There’s no words to describe how sad and upset we all are.

"We went to practice, then some girls left to go to an awards ceremony. We were waiting for rides and some girls started getting some things on Twitter. No one knew. It’s sad. We didn’t want to go out this way.”

See the MaxPreps national softball playoff brackets

The story reports that players noticed adults taking cellphone video of them before the contest.

“We were hitting soft toss, having three girls at a time go up and swing five times. Some were out in the field catching. We were just killing time,” said Caitlyn Whiteside.

Bylaw 2521.2 says that "Teams entered in the softball playoffs will not be permitted to take batting practice on the day of a playoff game prior to the commencement of the contest," and that "Includes bunting or slap hitting. Batting practice will be construed as any type of pitching motion with ANY type of ball from in front of the batter (including pitching machines, underhand tossing, overhand throwing or pepper)."

Star Class of 2014 wing Theo Pinson of Wesleyan Christian Academy (High Point, N.C.) announced Wednesday he will play his college ball for the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Pinson, a 6-foot-5, 180-pounder tabbed the No. 10 overall prospect in 247Sports.com's Class of 2014 player rankings, made the announcement shortly after noon local time at Wesleyan Christian.

The Tar Heels also have commitments from two other highly-touted rising senior prospects in point guard Joel Berry of Lake Highland Prep (Orlando, Fla.) and 6-7 sharpshooter Justin Jackson of HCYA (Houston).

Pinson has a wealth of high-level experience. He took the floor as a middle schooler and began creating a buzz with a North Carolina-based club team that featured Quincy Miller, Deuce Bello and J.T. Terrell.

He helped the United States capture gold in Mexico at the FIBA Americas U16 Championship in 2011, averaging 11.5 points per game on a team that also featured Aaron Gordon, Jabari Parker and Jahlil Okafor.

Pinson's latest success came as a junior at Wesleyan, where he teamed with freshman phenom Harry Giles to lead the Trojans to the NCISAA Class 3A state title. Wesleyan finished the season ranked No. 9 nationally in MaxPreps.com's Academy Top 10.

The five-star prospect picked UNC over Duke and Indiana among others.

After a stormy departure last fall at Milton High School, one of the most successful coaches in Georgia basketball history will return to the bench in 2013-14.

David Boyd, who has won over 600 games and six state titles, was named head coach at Excel Christian Academy (Cartersville, Ga.) on Monday.

Boyd has led four different Peach State schools to titles, but is best known for his recent run at Milton. He is fully retired from Georgia's public schools system but will also teach two English classes at Excel and possibly weight training.

"It would be a lot easier for me to sit back and enjoy the success my teams and players have had, but I felt like I had more to give," Boyd told MaxPreps by phone Tuesday morning.

Under Boyd's tutelage, Milton won state crowns in 2010 and 2012 and became one of the elite public school programs in the country. The Eagles were ranked in the top 15 nationally to finish the season by MaxPreps each year from 2010 to 2012.

The standouts from that run include Evan Nolte (Virginia), Dai-Jon Parker (Vanderbilt), Julian Royal (Georgia Tech, George Mason) and Shannon Scott (Ohio State).

But things ended on a sour note for Boyd at Milton as allegations of undue influence (recruiting) led to his ouster last September. He may have been a victim of his own success to some extent as players began gravitating toward a program that played a national schedule, including appearances at prestigious events like the City of Palms Classic, Beach Ball Classic and Spalding Hoophall Classic.

Boyd won't be starting from scratch at Excel Christian Academy. Under former Marlins minor leaguer and Kennesaw State basketball player Jon-Michael Nickerson, the program went 26-3 last season and reached the Class A quarterfinals.

"It's a situation I'm very comfortable with," Boyd said. "I'm excited about teaching and coaching and making a difference, as well as making a difference in a young person's spiritual life. That's something that's very important to me."

Nickerson left to take a position under Josh Pastner at the University of Memphis.

The new position at Excel isn't the only change in Boyd's life. The veteran coach will also marry fiancee Geniese in June.