Sim Bhullar, a member of the MaxPreps.com 2012 Boys’ Basketball Players to Watch list, has transferred out of Kiski Prep School, along with his brother,
Tanveer Bhullar, who is 7-foot-2 sophomore, and
Stefan Jankovic, who is a 6-foot-10 junior. The latter two are also considered NCAA Division I recruits.
A 7-foot-4 junior, Sim Bhullar already has scholarship offers from Pitt and West Virginia.
Kiski School head coach Daryn Freedman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the departures of the three players came as a surprise and in the middle of Kiski’s schedule, which is already 12 games old. He believes the Bhullar brothers will go to different schools outside the state, while Jankovic will probably follow Sim Bhullar.
"There are rumors that Sim and Stefan are looking at Huntington (W. Va.) Prep," Freedman told the newspaper. "Tanveer may be going to school in Maryland."
The Bhullars and Jankovic were only at Kiski School a little over a year. The three transferred from the Toronto area for the 2009-10 school year.
"Basically, this had to do with AAU stuff," Freedman, who had all three players on his Basketball Stars of America AAU team, told the newspaper. "It’s one of those bad, dirty parts of basketball. It’s sad, but they’ve moved on."
MT. ALVERNIA DROPS GIRLS BASKETBALLMt. Alvernia (Pittsburgh), for years a powerhouse girls’ basketball program in the WPIAL, won’t field a team this year because of a lack of players. The Lions have won six WPIAL titles including their last in 2008, and a PIAA title in 1983 but lost long-time head coach De Porucznik to retirement after last year.
Porucznik coached Mt. Alvernia for 48 years and is still the school’s athletic director.
Last season, Mt. Alvernia, a Class A private Catholic all-girls school in Millvale just outside Pittsburgh, had nine players on the roster including five seniors and went 10-11.
“I could see it coming,” Larry McCabe, who was an assistant at Mount Alvernia from 198-2009, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “For several years, the school’s enrollment has been dropping. Many of the families who were sending their girls to the school are not extremely wealthy, and they’ve been struggling with the economy.”
This season, first-year head coach Orie Gentile had eight girls out of a school enrollment of 100, committed to play basketball.
The chances of Mount Alvernia returning to the hardwood are not great. According to part-time assistant athletic director Karen Hall, who was a member of the 1983 PIAA title team, the WPIAL has told Mount Alvernia that it would have to sit out a year following this season and the earliest it could field a basketball team again would be the 2012-2013 season.
