Congratulations to Brian Gregory and Mo Cassara on snagging their first commitment-Norm Plummer of Fairfield (OH) HS/Brewster (NH) Academy/Hargrave (VA) Military Academy.

— That’s an awful lot of schools for one guy, Norm. NP still has a long way to go to beat former NYC playground legend Lenny Cooke who attended 5 different HS in a single year. Cooke played on the Celtics summer league team.

— Speaking of summer leagues, Brooks Hall never got a shot with the Utah Jazz in the Rocky Mountain Revue and Tony Stanley disappeared from the Mavericks roster once they headed to the RMR, after a couple of double-digit scoring efforts in the Reebok Summer League in Boston. That sucks.

— I kinda knew UD had Plummer in the bag when TheInsidersHoops.com had “Strong Interest” next to UD in Norm’s profile and “Medium Interest” for Iowa State and all the other schools he was considering, with only UD having offered a full ride.

— Okay kids let’s go to Google.com, enter “Norm Plummer” and see what we come up with:

From Hoopville.com on Plummer’s performance at the initial “War on the Shore” prep school tournament:

“If the tournament had a breakout player, it was Brewster Academy’s Norm Plummer. The 6-6 junior small forward played very well in both games as he led his team in scoring with 52 points. Plummer is an athletic forward who plays every second, scores often in transition and in close on drives, while needing to work on his jump shot. He is around the ball a lot and showed plenty of potential this weekend.”

According to SoCalHoops.com, Norm torched my alma mater, Notre Dame Prep of Fitchburg (MA) for 38 points in the Brewster Invitational. Damn, Norm couldn’t you have taken it easier on those Crusaders? I find it interesting that Norm’s teammate and UC recruit Mike Pilgrim only had 18 in that game.

A couple of items from the Brewster Academy website:

“McDonald’s Corporation honored three Brewster Academy players prior to tip-off who were nominated to the McDonald’s All American Team. Blake Schilb (Rantoul, Illinois), Mike Pilgrim (Cincinnati), and Ivan Kostic (Madrid, Spain) were the three recipients.”

What about Norm?

Brewster 109, Worcester Academy 100 (February 2)
“The boys’ varsity basketball team defeated an extremely talented Worcester Academy team. Brewster was led by junior Norman Plummer with 34 points. Blake Schilb added 26 points and 11 rebounds while junior Joel Smith chipped in 24 points and played outstanding defense. Both David Gale and Deion James did an outstanding job of running the team from the point guard spot.
Worcester Academy was led by Boston College-bound Steve Hailey with 32 points and Providence College-bound Dwight Brewington with 23 points.”
Guess that explains how Mo Cassara knew so much about Mr. Plummer, eh?

Norm Plummer is also the President of Bigston Information Technologies in Elk Grove Village, IL. Boy, he gets around!

— Nice to hear a local kid say one of the reasons he chose UD is he wanted to be close to home.

— Kobe Bryant’s middle name is “Bean”. No it’s not his mother’s maiden name — Kobe’s dad is former NBA player Joe “Jelly Bean” Bryant.

— A lawyer friend of mine says that the Bryant case is very peculiar. The Prosecutor has something-physical evidence, forensics or whatever-up his sleeve that he had sealed and hasn’t released. If it’s just a “he said, she said” case they’ll never get a conviction, so there has to be more to it.

— Which Michigan big guy do you want BG to sign-Al Horford or Goran Sutton?

— I guess I have some fans over on the RaiderRoundball.com MB. One guy named Big D took exception to my coverage of the Deveroes Summer League, saying I didn’t have the stats right (I didn’t keep them), KW didn’t cover Cain (he did when CD drained a few deep 3s), Cripe didn’t dominate the boards (he did when he was in there) and a bunch of other stuff. Yo, BigD — I’m not Dave Lance (thank God!) and this isn’t the DDN — I just scribbled down a bunch of notes as I sat watching. I have a day job and this ain’t it.

— While you’re at it Big D, why don’t you ask Rowdy who was it that anonymously fed him several reports on Vova’s HS games last winter?

— Cigar Boy was nice enough to defend my honor. Thanks again, Bill!

— A lot of kvetching on the UDPride.com MB about the Flyers’ OOC schedule. It sucks…we’ll never be featured on “Sportscenter”…it’ll hurt our RPI. I have one simple solution for BG: Get ranked and stay there. ESPN shows highlights of all the ranked teams and the OOC schedule will only hurt our RPI if UD loses to one of them-so don’t!