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College Basketball Recruiting Roundup: LaMelo Ball will not play at UCLA

By Gabe Esquivel

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 27: LaMelo Ball attends a basketball game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center on November 27, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 27: LaMelo Ball attends a basketball game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center on November 27, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images) /
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As most really saw coming anyway, LaMelo Ball will not be playing at UCLA in the future.

The Ball family makes headlines again, and this time it impacts recruiting! Otherwise, it has been another quiet week on the recruiting trail, with basically zero notable commitments for the class of 2018. Despite that, we have seen some interesting developments with some 2019 graduates that make for interesting news. Reaching the quarter mark of the college basketball season, most coaches are focused on setting their team up for conference play rather than recruiting. That said, the recruiting never stops. Assistants are helping and head coaches are getting in touch with recruits as much as possible.

Let’s take a look at a couple of the more notable recruiting storylines of the last week.

LaMelo Ball won’t play college basketball

In a recent development, Ball family patriarch, Lavar, has decided to pull LiAngelo Ball out of UCLA amidst his shoplifting saga. LiAngelo, the middle Ball son, was serving an indefinite suspension at UCLA for his shoplifting in China. This move comes a few months after Lavar decided to pull LaMelo out of Chino Hills High School to opt for homeschooling his last two years before graduating in 2019.

Now, both of the Ball brothers have signed with an agent and will seek overseas options. This comes as a partial shock, as it was expected for LiAngelo, but not quite for LaMelo. Lavar will seek the best professional team overseas that is willing to play both brothers together, which is the key here. This comes as part of their NBA Draft preparation, so we will have to see how many teams are willing to be used as a stepping stone. This has already been met with skepticism from European GMs. Many are scoffing at the notion of the Ball brothers playing in Europe due to their skillset and inexperience. This brings up a big question of which team will be the one to give the Ball family a chance at pro basketball.

It isn’t hard to imagine one low-level team biting at the chance for endless media promotion that comes with the Ball family.

Courtney Ramey sets four visits

Courtney Ramey, one of the top guards in the class of 2018, scheduled his first four official visits this week. Ramey is a former Louisville commit, who decided to decommit due to the FBI scandal and Pitino’s firing. Things have been mostly quiet lately for Ramey, but it looks like he is ready to get back out there and work back to committing to a new program.

His first visit will be Dec. 8 to Oklahoma State. A couple of weeks later, Ramey will visit another Big 12 school in Texas on Dec. 27. Fast forward a month and a half, and Ramey will visit Jay Wright and Villanova on Feb. 10. Lastly, he will head to Westwood to visit UCLA a week later on Feb. 17. It remains to be seen what the guard will do with his final remaining visit, if anything at all. Look for Ramey to go through all of his resources to determine the school for him, especially after the Louisville fiasco.

Virginia Tech loses three commits

Three class of 2019 commits announced that their decommittments from Virginia Tech. It isn’t entirely clear if there was one specific thing or circumstance that made them all decommit at the same time or if they really just prefer to be together.

Kobe Langley, Keyshaun Langley, and BJ Mack all announced that they will seek opportunities elsewhere.

The Langleys are guards from North Carolina while Mack plays for Oak Hill in Virginia. All are viewed as 3-star players via 247Sports, and the trio made up the entirety of Tech’s 2019 class. Back to the drawing board they go.

Khalif Battle is planning his visits

Khalif Battle, the 4-star guard and younger brother of Tyus Battle, will be visiting Butler at the end of December. His intrigue in Butler is partially stemmed from the fact that Butler currently has coaches that used to work at Michigan, the school that his older brother was originally committed to. He is also planning to visit UConn. And of course, he has been to Syracuse many times and developed a relationship with the staff there due to his brother playing there. Battle is an under-the-radar type of guy who can be a major player multiple years.

Battle’s older brother, Tyus is only a sophomore this year. Assuming he doesn’t enter the draft, the prospect of playing with his older brother could be huge for the younger Battle.