(St. Louis, MO) – The renaissance of Saint Louis University basketball is well underway as one of St. Louis’ top high school basketball players is staying home. Webster Groves forward Cart’Are Gordon verbally committed to Saint Louis University during his junior season (Travis Ford’s first at SLU) and signed his letter of intent in earlier this month.
Gordon transferred from St. John Vianney to Webster Groves in the middle of his prep career, so rumors were plentiful that the 4-Star post would not maintain his earlier commitment to the Billikens. Gordon and his Statesmen teammates won Missouri’s Class 5 State Championship last spring and are favorites to repeat this year.
During the signing ceremony, Gordon who is in spectacular shape, is 15 pounds down from where ESPN has him listed and is excited to be a part of Ford’s third season at SLU.
After Gordon verbally committed most programs respected that decision and backed off recruiting him, but after Missouri signed Cuonzo Martin as their new coach and so many talented players were gravitating to Columbia, Missouri ‘twittersphere’ was nuts with stories of Gordon joining Michael Porter Junior and others at the Tiger revival.
Gordon told us he has been impressed with coach Ford and never wavered on his decision because of the family feel around the SLU program. The 6’8 right-hander says it took a lot of hard work to get into the best shape of his life.
During their state title run Gordon averaged 19.1 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. His Webster head coach Jay Blossom (a Missouri graduate) says young St. Louis players staying close to home to play basketball is a good thing. The two-time state champion coach says Gordon is a long way from a finished product, but he has been growing and maturing his entire time at Webster.
Teammate Courtney Ramey is also a Top-100 recruit that originally committed to Louisville, but de-committed in the midst of the scandal that cost Rick Pitino his job. Ramey has since broken his wrist and is out six to eight weeks.
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