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It’s raining recruits for Rick Pitino in Seattle

Shaqquan Aaron

Lakeside’s Isiah Brown (12) is blocked by Rainier Beach’s Shaqquan Aaron (35) in the first half of the division 3A boys high school basketball championship on Saturday, March 2, 2013, in Tacoma, Wash. Rainier Beach defeated Lakeside 62-59. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

AP

Sometimes it must be pretty rough being Lorenzo Romar. He gets the lip service from top recruits in the Pacific Northwest, but recently he’s been publicly spurned by recruits like Kyle Wiltjer, Terrence Jones and Enes Kanter, all of whom chose to leave home to play for John Calipari at Kentucky.

And it doesn’t end there. Our most recent national title-winning commonwealth-based coach and Hall of Famer, Rick Pitino, has practically made a second home in Romar’s backyard, and he’s not shy about saying so.

“We have a Seattle pipeline that’s been very good to us,” Pitino told the Seattle Times’ Percy Allen last week. “It’s a fertile area with some of the best basketball at the high-school level in the country.”

Pitino snagged versatile point-forward Terrence Williams from the Seattle area back in 2005, and more recently rode Peyton Siva’s ballhandling skills to a national championship. So who’s next?

Shaqquan Aaron is the next Seattle-to-Louisville standout. The Rainier Beach High senior forward is considered a four-star prospect by the major recruiting services. Rivals ranks him 27th nationally and ESPN 53rd.

Pitino said Siva and Williams have helped bolster Louisville’s reputation in Seattle.

“The more success those guys have, the more the younger ones – the next generation – sees that and affiliates that to Louisville,” Pitino said. “They’re our greatest ambassadors. They sell the program better than I ever could.”


Romar’s roster is hardly bare of local products, but there’s no doubt his team could have been a serious national title contender in the past few seasons had he kept some of his players from upping and moving south.

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