Udoka Azubuike is a big target for the Florida Gators basketball staff

The Florida Gators basketball staff under new head coach Mike White is desperately trying to find big men in the class of 2016 and they have several big time targets on the board.

One of those center prospects they are talking too is Udoka Azubuike (6-11, 265, Jacksonville, FL The Potter’s House Christian Academy) but according to his head coach the center is nowhere close to being ready to narrow things down.

“We aren’t rushing anything, we are trying to take everything slow with his recruitment,” head coach Stephen McLaughlin said. “We are just really trying to figure out what is best for him and right now we are in the process of trying to set up visits to schools and set up in-home visits.”

Azubuike doesn’t have any finalized plans yet, but according to McLaughlin, the talented center does have an idea of some places he wants to visit.

“We have a couple of schools in mind of who we may visit,” McLaughlin said. “We aren’t ready to release those schools but we are just trying to go through the process of making sure. When we finalize those list of schools then we will let it be known.”

One thing that is know is that the Florida Gators basketball staff has done a good job of staying in contact with Azubuike and they are sending a message to him about how he will be used at Florida.

“We talk to Florida a good bit and we just talked to Coach White,” McLaughlin said. “We do talk to those guys over there and Coach White says the same thing that the other schools are saying. He says that he wants to feature his offense around Udoka and do this and that. That is one of the reasons that we are taking things slow is so that Udoka can see what offense he’s comfortable with.”

Not only is White recruiting Azubuike hard but Florida Gators basketball assistant Jordan Mincy is also building a good relationship with the center and his head coach.

“Coach White has good conversations with us but we haven’t settled any plans on whether or not we will go there or not for a visit,” McLaughlin said. “We also talk to Coach Jordan Mincy a lot. He talks us like three times a week. Me and him have built a good relationship together already.”

Despite coming in late with Azubuike, the Florida Gators are doing a good job of making up for list time with the center according to his high school coach.

“Florida is Florida. Florida is always going to be able to sell itself, no matter who the coach is,” McLaughlin said. “Florida does a good job of building relationships and I feel like we are getting there to building a good relationship with each other. We talk about everything from basketball to other things.”

 

INSIDERS TAKE: Azubuike is a quiet kid and doesn’t like doing interviews and doesn’t like people knowing his plans, but if I was guessing if he would visit Florida or not, I would say that he ends up visiting the Florida Gators basketball staff in Gainesville.

 

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.