Men's Basketball: Peterkin selects Irish
By: ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Writer
Omari Peterkin was hoping to walk-on to Miami's basketball team. Or he was, until someone sent a two-minute videotape of the Virgin Islands high school senior to several college basketball programs in the United States.
Including Notre Dame.
After visiting Indiana, Connecticut and Notre Dame, Peterkin officially signed a letter-of-intent last week to play for the Irish. The 6-foot-8, 250-pound Peterkin joins Torin Francis, Rick Cornett and Chris Quinn as freshmen in the fall.
"Our players who played with him felt great about him as a player. But even more importantly, they felt like he was our kind of guy," said Irish head coach Mike Brey. "He's got the total package."
Brey didn't expect to land another recruit this late in the year. While the Irish had scholarships to spare and were looking to add a high school senior or college transfer to the team by April, they had pretty much given up on adding another player so late in the recruiting season.
That is, until assistant coach Anthony Solomon heard rumors about an overlooked player from the small island of St. Thomas.
"Recruiting is a day to day thing, you never know what's going to happen," Brey said. "This is a great example of a guy coming out of the woodwork, and you can't analyze him. In recruiting, you're forced to make a decision quick, and we made a quick one."
What made Peterkin pick the Irish over Indiana and Connecticut was Notre Dame's strong academic program. He hopes to major in biology and was impressed that Notre Dame had a solid combination of athletics and academics.
Brey compared Peterkin to graduating senior Harold Swanagan. He praised his size and the way he could catch and handle the ball.
But he added that the forward still has a lot of work to do. Peterkin only started playing basketball five years ago, and Brey said he needs to physically prepare for the pace of the college game and get used to the competition level.
"One of the things we've discussed was putting him on a five-year program," Brey said. "We have to be patient with his development. But he's got the summer to get ready and he'll have a month of practice. It probably won't even be decided until the night before the first game."
All Sports Stories for Friday, May 17, 2002
