Crawford chooses NU

after a summer in which Drew Crawford saw his stock rise, he narrowed his choices to Wake Forest and Northwestern. last night, he decided on NU. Crawford is a 6-4 wing from Naperville Central who isn't afraid to have the ball in his hands at crunch time. when was the last time we had a player like that?

here is some more detail about his recruitment, giving more props to Tarvaras, who continues to make great headway in Chicagoland. Crawford is a big get, not only from a talent perspective, but also in terms of NU being able to play with the big boys. the fact that Crawford turned down a visit to an ACC school who put together a top-5 class in 2008 is beyond encouraging. it shows that Tarvaras has done a fantastic job of establishing relationships with young players. and in the cases of Crawford and Kyle Rowley, those players stick by the relationship with NU even when the players get better and bigger schools come calling.

of course, the potential downside of all this is that barring an absolute disastrous season - which is not impossible - i don't see Carmody getting fired after this season. not that college AD's are above firing a coach and letting the replacement win with his predecessor's players, but the timing would just not seem right. i guess at this point the best we can hope for is that Tavaras has an eye for talent and these guys can actually play. otherwise Rowley and Crawford will join the ranks of recent high-touted newcomers who didn't pan out: Collier Drayton, David Newman, Adam Robinson, Ed McCants, Michael Thompson...

9/10 update - hopefully no one tells Drew that Northwestern has no UG business school. at least not until after he signs that NLI.