Purdue has been aggressively recruiting St. Thomas More's (CT) Nick Vander Laan during the July contact period. And the pressure has paid off, as Purdue has made Laan's final list. According to West Coast Hoops, Laan has a final list of Cal, Stanford, Purdue, Indiana, UNLV, Utah, Arizona and Notre Dame and plans to take four official visits in September. He has already visted Purdue and Notre Dame, visits he got out of the way while playing at the Spiece tournament in Mackey back in May. Other schools that Laan has visited include Cal, Utah and UNLV. New rumors on the internet this morning say Laan has decided not to wait until September for the visits, and has verballed to Cal. We will wait for a little more solid confirmation, as the source for this info is someone on a forum claiming to be close to the LA Rockfish, and has also cited newspaper reports not on the internet. If anyone is in the Oakland California area and has access to the Oakland Tribune (if there is one), look for an article on Laan that announces the Cal verbal.

Another big kid out west that has recently verballed is 6'11 Lance Allred from Utah. He verballed to...you guessed it...Utah.

Other rumors are indicating that Purdue may be in a position to offer Nathan Popp a scholarship, who has a final list including Purdue, Northwestern, Georgia and Kentucky. Kentucky looks to be a strong favorite, but if they continue to pursue the big men on their list (including John Stewart and Marvin Stone), UK won't have the room for Popp on the roster.