Devilish Dream
No. 6 Richa Jackson commits and may have given Duke the lead for the top class.
Glenn Nelson/ESPN.com Richa Jackson's commitment gives Duke a monster recruiting class.Richa Jackson hardly can be considered a bellwether on the current state of women's college-basketball recruiting. For one thing, she took all five of her official visits, an almost unheard-of phenomenon in these go-go, hurry-up-and-commit days. Secondly, Jackson took her fifth and final visit this weekend to Oklahoma, the "hometown" choice among her finalists -- and promptly committed to Duke on Sunday morning.
So much for the last-seen, most-loved theory in recruiting.
"I wanted to see if it would change my mind," Jackson said of her visit to Norman, Okla., just a 24-mile jaunt down I-35 from her hometown of Oklahoma City. "It didn't. I still liked Duke the best."
This against-the-grain kind of thinking tends to work in the favor of a program like Duke's. The place is not, after all, one for the academically wary. And it does tend to attract more of a national recruit than many others. Plus, in the case of Joanne P. McCallie's 2010 recruiting class, versatility in thinking tends to produce versatility on the court.
To wit, Jackson, ranked No. 6 in the class by ESPN HoopGurlz, is a 6-foot-1 wing-guard who can shoot from distance with the best of them and pound smaller defenders on the boxes. She joins Chelsea Gray, No. 4 in the class, a big point guard at 5-11 who can score; Haley Peters, a forward who has a post's height to pare with a whirling dervish approach, and Tricia Liston, a shooter deluxe who has great size at 6 feet and thinks through the game as well as anyone in the class.
And oh yeah: Jackson is from Oklahoma City, Okla; Gray from Stockton, Calif.; Peters from Shrewsbury, N.J., and Liston from Oak Park, Ill.
For those rendered geographically confused by the countrywide influx, Duke is located in Durham, N.C.
Jackson, who wants to study law and carries a 3.8 gpa, also made visits to Northwestern, Texas and Texas A&M. Her trip to Durham solidified in her mind, she said, that she would be fine so far away from home. It was there, after all, that she followed such former Duke stars as Alana Beard from afar.
Last summer, Jackson focused on her passing skills with her club team, KC Selects, and embraced the kind of varied role McCallie has in mind for her.
"My very first position was post," Jackson said, " and I went from there. I love playing -- inside and outside."
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Glenn Nelson is a senior writer at ESPN.com and the founder of HoopGurlz.com. A member of the Parade All-American Selection Committee, he formerly coached girl's club basketball, was the editor-in-chief of an online sports network, authored a basketball book for kids, and was a longtime, national-award-winning newspaper columnist and writer. He can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.
