WSU Cougars Recruiting: Why Ernie Kent Won’t Fill Scholarships By Signing Period Ending Today

Washington State head basketball coach Ernie Kent has been hoping to fill all his available scholarship opening by the ending of the college basketball signing period today, but that looks unlikely to happen at this moment.

Of course with Tremaine Isabell’s unfortunate release from his letter of intent a few days ago, the Cougs added one necessary spot to the cause, which has obviously impacted this whole ordeal. The two names we’ve been hearing are Brandon Chauca from South Carolina and one-time Cal-commit Ahmaad Rorie out of Tacoma.

Rorie has discussed wanting to sign as soon as possible after this past weekend, but he’s still receiving expanded interest throughout the country, having added a Missouri offer recently to go along with his WSU and Washington offers. When he opened up his options he became one of the best options in the country remaining to be courted, so he may wait. Chauca has not discussed any such plans and has been pretty non-committal in general.

If neither officially signs an L.O.I. today, it doesn’t mean the Cougs won’t eventually get one or both of them. Instead of a two-way-binding agreement, basically the Cougs would need to gain a Financial Aid Agreement from them. In that case the Cougs would be bound but the player wouldn’t be fully bonded until enrolling in school. This is basically like when a junior college transfer signs early and comes onto campus for Spring semester.

So it doesn’t sound like the Cougars are in a good position to sign both of these kids today, at least at this point, without a surprise (which also could definitely happen). We’ll hope to hear good news as the day goes on.