I'm guessing most of you heard about Tony Chenault's commitment earlier in the week, but I hadn't had the chance to really write about it and decided this would be a great time to do so.

Philadelphia native Chenault is a great pick up for the 2010 recruiting class. Point Guard was definitely a position the coaching staff was looking to fill for 2010, and Chenault was one of the best available. It's great to see that the coaching staff has the ability to go up to a place like Philadelphia and grab one the best players there.

I've only ever seen Chenault in short highlight clips, but everyone who has seen him play has glowing things to say. I get the impression that he's the type of PG who likes to attack the basket and is very powerful; he may not be quite as quick as Ishmael Smith or Jeff Teague, but his ability to get to the basket is impressive.

Since Smith will have graduated and the possibility exists for Teague to leave early as well, a 2010 point guard was very important, and I believe the Deacs got a good one. He and J.T. Terrell are the start of a great class. Interestingly enough, the 2010 class is now well ahead of the 2009 class, but that isn't necessarily something to be concerned about.

Congrats to Tony on making a good decision. See you in Winston-Salem.

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This morning basketball takes the spotlight, as yesterday Philadelphia point guard Tony Chenault verbally committed to play basketball for the Demon Deacons, joining the class of 2010. Chenault is currently a three star prospect according to Scout.com. I'll publish my own take on this commitment in the next day or two, but here are some other stories until then.

Speaking of basketball, the pairings for the Anaheim Classic have been announced, and Wake Forest will face Cal State Fullerton in the first round, Thursday, November 27, on ESPN2. UTEP and St. Mary's are the other teams in Wake's bracket, and Wake would face the winner/loser of their game Friday on ESPNU. The final games are set for Sunday the 30th, with the championship being played on ESPN2. This doesn't exactly set Wake up for the matchups they would have most wanted from a strength of schedule perspective, but it does set them up well to have a good shot at winning the tournament.

Of course we can't totally ignore football, so here is Dan Collins' usual football notebook, as well as this feature on Josh Adams.

I'm traveling today, so if I'm slow to answer emails or anything like that I apologize. I expect to still have a full practice report up tonight.

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Information regarding Al-Farouq Aminu's arrest has been trickling out throughout the weekend. After the initial story broke, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published more information regarding the nature of the situation, including comments from the Women's husband.

His quotes even included this zinger: "I'll tell you, his shooting at my house was much better than his shooting at the McDonald's game." Nice. That AJC article can be read here.

USA Today has now published an article with comments from people close to Aminu. According to his AAU coach Aminu was not the shooter.

One would assume that not being the shooter, if true, would be a very good thing for Aminu in this situation. Hopefully he wasn't the driver, either.

That's about it for now. I'm cautiously optimistic that this won't end up being too huge an issue in the long run, but Aminu certainly isn't out of the woods yet. We'll continue to hope for the best.

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Headline? Check.

Criminal Charges? Check.

Mugshot? See picture to the right.

What does it add up to? Certainly nothing good for high school standout, McDonald's All-American and Wake Forest basketball recruit Al-Farouq Aminu.

Aminu turned himself in to the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department Friday evening and appears to have since been released on bail. He has been charged with felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor trespassing stemming from a March 14 incident in which Aminu allegedly shot a female with a BB gun from a car.

Georgia law states that "The exclusive, original jurisdiction of juvenile courts extends to delinquent children under the age of 17 and deprived or unruly children under the age of 18," indicating that Aminu will be treated as an adult in this situation (http://www.georgiacourts.org/juvenile.html).

The aggravated assault charge appears to be automatic in situations where someone fires a gun from a vehicle towards another person (http://www.georgiacriminaldefense.com/georgia-violent-crimes.html):

Aggravated Assault – O.C.G.A. 16-5-21

Aggravated assault occurs when an assault is committed one of three ways: 1) with intent to murder, rape or rob; 2) with a deadly weapon (includes any instrument which, when used against a person is likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury) or 3) by discharge of a firearm from within a motor vehicle toward a person or people.

Punishment - Felony: 1 to 20 years in prison unless:

Furthermore:

If the aggravated assault involves discharge of a firearm from within a motor vehicle toward a person or people, the punishment shall be 5 to 20 years in prison

At this point no explanation has been provided for the trespassing charge, so we'll leave that alone for now.

Obviously I am no legal expert, but in my mind firing some kind of BB gun is quite different than firing just about any other kind of gun. Obviously it is a very very very dumb thing to do, but that doesn't seem nearly as serious as firing a much deadlier weapon. Still, the law may see it differently and that's what will ultimately matter.

Once again, Aminu has not been convicted of any crime. I certainly hope that he is cleared of all these charges, and that at a minimum he loses the felony charge. This will have plenty of time to play out in court. In the end we may be freaking out about something that won't be a huge deal; that would certainly be the hope.

This does have interesting implications with his status at Wake Forest. Something like this could certainly have an affect on his ability to be admitted to the school or receive his scholarship. I haven't seen an issue like this before so who knows where it will go, but I think Aminu's scholarship to Wake will be in serious jeopardy if he's convicted of a felony. If it drops to a misdemeanor or is dropped entirely then there may be a minimal affect on his Wake career, perhaps only a brief suspension from the athletic department if anything.

This will have plenty of time to play out and I'll be doing my best to stay on top of the issues as they unfold. I don't know how the athletic department will handle this situation and it will not surprise me if A.D. Ron Wellman and head coach Dino Gaudio decline to comment on the issue right now. Nonetheless, I'll do some digging and see what I can come up with.

Crap.

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Late last night Kansas State pulled off a historical upset over previously undefeated Kansas. K State, who had lost 24 straight games to Kansas on their home floor prior to last night, finally broke that streak and improved to a perfect 5-0 in the Big 12.

Highly touted freshman Michael Beasley, who scored a game high 24 points and made all four of his 3-point attempts, was the biggest star of the game. There is no doubt that Beasley will make a very good NBA player, most likely sooner rather than later.

Birkel from ACC BasketBlog saw the game as well and made a very interesting observation. He says that future 5-star recruits should learn from Beasley’s example. For top recruits, “if you go somewhere where not much is expected and the overall competition in a conference is decent but not great, you can become a legend.”

It is an interesting and compelling argument, and although there is certainly some support for it, I’m not entirely convinced. Beasley is a pretty good example, and currently O.J. Mayo at USC might be another who could fall into this category, but would these guys be incapable of making a splash at an ACC school other than Duke or Carolina?

Assuming Boston College loses tonight there are seven three-loss teams in the ACC all essentially tied for third place behind Duke and Carolina. The way I see things, if Michael Beasley was on one of those seven teams then that team would likely be the best team in the conference.

If this season continues the way it has for Kansas State Beasley will be a hero in Manhattan, Kansas for many years to come, but I don’t see why he couldn’t do the exact same thing in Blacksburg, Virginia or Clemson, South Carolina.

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At the beginning of January I posted a highlight video of one of Al-Farouq Aminu's games. Takkle, the site that provided the highlights, now also have a video interview available as well. Click play below to check it out.

Video Posted from Al-Farouq 's Gallery on Takkle.com

Good stuff form AFA, who also talked to the Winston-Salem Journal recently as well. You can check that post out here.

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At this point there's no doubt about the excitement over next season's recruits. The catchy "AT&T" nickname notwithstanding, the recruiting class of Al-Farouq Aminu, Tony Woods, and Ty Walker has garnered plenty of national recognition for being among the best, if not the best, in the country.

Aminu has been the mostly highly touted of the three, and from the performances I've seen he's definitely bound to be a star. This fact has not been lost on John Delong of the Winston-Salem Journal, who traveled down to Georgia to meet with Aminu, his coaches, and his family.

He has written a fabulous article about Aminu, and not only should it excite Deacon fans about Aminu's potential with the team, but also his classiness and integrity. It's a long read, but well worth it. Check it out here.

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Okay so really it was Norcross HS vs Helen Cox HS, but all any Deacon fans (or Georgetown fans for that matter) cared about were these two guys.

Thankfully Aminu didn't disappoint, putting up 29 points and pulling down 13 rebounds in a very impressive 11 point win. Not only did he play well, but he definitely out-shined Monroe on this night as well

I only got to see the second half, but the third quarter was dominated by Al-Farouq, and although he wasn't quite as impressive in the fourth he still looked like the best player on the floor.

Besides getting to see a great performance from Aminu, Wake Forest got some great publicity throughout the game. The announcers talked about Skip (including another very tasteful tribute), Dino, and the job he's been doing so far. Tony Woods and Ty Walker also were mentioned and all three recruits were credited for their integrity in still signing with Wake.

All in all it was a great night for Wake Forest basketball.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on Aminu's performance, the broadcast's comments on Wake, or anything else related to tonight, so please share in the comments.

AFA Highlights:

Brief Skip Tribute:

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The guys over at Takkle have a video up of soon-to-be Wake Forest Demon Deacon Al-Farouq Aminu. This video is from a December game against North Forsyth (GA) and Aminu definitely had an impressive performance. Needless to say I'm excited to see him playing in the Joel very soon.

Video Posted from Al-Farouq 's Gallery on Takkle.com

I find it rather humorous that Norcross (Aminu's high school) apparently has stolen Duke's logo as their own. I'm certainly glad he realized it would be stupid to follow that logo to College.

As excited as I am about Aminu and his fellow recruits (Ty Walker and Tony Woods) the even better thing right now is that we can all be excited about how the current team is doing. Although the NCAA tournament may be a stretch, a postseason NIT bid should be well within reach. The game against BYU next Tuesday (Jan. 8) should tell us a lot about this team.

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Plenty of news articles coming out for Tuesday. I'll try to keep a running list here. Needless to say, things are looking pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

WS Journal - Dan Collins
Rome Tribune - Tony Woods
USA Today - Prosser Gets Credit
WWAY Wilmington - Ty Walker
Atlanta J-C - Top Class

I'm sure I'm missing several more, but that's a good start. Let me know if I missed something.

By the way, I recognize I've been mostly just pointing you to places to read things elsewhere these last couple days. I hope to write something opinion-wise about the recruiting class hopefully sometime tomorrow, but its just been one of those weeks when it comes to school. The NC State interview should be coming tomorrow, and I'll of course be covering the game Saturday.

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I have yet to hear official word that anyone has signed their letter of intent, but Ty Walker, Tony Woods, and Al-Farouq Aminu are all expected to sign national letters of intent this afternoon to play basketball at Wake Forest starting with 2008-2009 season.

I'm very excited and anxious to get the official news that they have signed.

I've got some other stuff to take care of this afternoon, so I can't promise to be able to update this as soon as anything happens, but I'll be posting links to official news of the signings as soon as I possibly can.

Let's hear it for AT&T!

NEW UPDATE: It's all official! Dino announced at a press conference tonight that all three have signed. Go Deacs!

Dino's Announcement

Video of Ty Walker Signing

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Big props to Justin Young of Rivals.com for a very very good article about next year's big three - Al-Farouq Aminu, Tony Woods, and Ty Walker (who, by the way, are expected to sign their letters of intent tomorrow).

Rivals.com - AT&T

We've heard all about the Prosser story from the angle of the current team, but this is the best I've seen looking at it from the perspective of our recruits. Definitely worth reading.

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