Eagle Staff Report
Midnight Madness on Oct. 17 may have been the celebration of college basketball officially opening the season, but the real significance, especially in the Big 12, was the number of verbal commitments that changed the scope of the 2009 recruiting class.
Texas A&M joined in on the fun, with second-year Aggie coach Mark Turgeon landing his fourth Rivals.com Top 150 recruit.
Ray Turner, likely the most physical of the four, watched as the 2008-09 Aggie team was introduced to the approximately 20,000 faithful that showed up at Kyle Field for Maroon Madness a night before the A&M-Texas Tech football game. The 6-foot-8, 220-pounder from Houston Jones left knowing he would be one of those being ushered in at the same time next year.
Turner, ranked No. 144 by Rivals.com, rounds out a class that includes small forward Naji Hibbert (88th), power forward Kourtney Roberson (122nd) and small forward Khris Middleton (150th).
As a group, the foursome is ranked as No. 20 in the 2009 recruiting class according to Rivals.com.
Turner averaged 16 points, 9.5 rebounds and 4.5 blocks per game during his junior season at Jones High. He selected the Aggies over Oklahoma State, Missouri, Baylor, Nebraska and Marquette.
Elsewhere, Oklahoma State's 2009 class moved up to No. 18 when Duncanville point guard Reger Dowell, who had earlier committed to Alabama and then Arizona, chose the Cowboys after visiting Stillwater last Friday.
Dowell will battle with Fort Bend's Raymond Penn, one of the nation's top-rated point guards in the 2009 class.
Also adding to a top-ranked recruiting class was Oklahoma, which landed Houston Madison point guard Tommy Mason-Griffin (66th) this past week. That bumped the Sooners up to a No. 17 ranking.
In keeping with the point guard theme, Kansas received a commitment from Elijah Johnson, a five-star recruit out of Las Vegas. His decision moved Kansas to a No. 4 ranking despite having only two verbal commitments.
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