Cannot Falter

Stephan Van Treese, one of the top seniors in Indiana, has committed to Louisville. Van Treese is one four seniors that UL will sign in November and offered his commitment to Rick Pitino following a visit from the coach on Tuesday.

The ride SVT has been on over the last year was a wild one. He started out as one of the top 30 players in the country and a big IU lean, especially considering how it was percieved that he would mesh with Sampson’s style of coaching. Van Treese though had interest from all the big names, including UCLA, Kansas, Ohio State, Michigan State, and Purdue. However a weak junior season caused him to plummet down and ultimately out of Rivals’ Top 150 players.

Then recently came a new twist: Van Treese might consider coming to IU as a walk-on. While Van Treese was no longer seen as an elite prospect, he was still universally regarded as a high-major scholarship player, so the thought that he would consider walking on at IU was puzzling. The thinking was that because scholarships were at such a premium for the 2009 class, perhaps SVT would come to IU and pay his own way for a year and get a scholarship for the next three years starting in 2010.

At the end of the day, Stephan had (at least we’re pretty sure) an offer on the table from IU for a long time. For some reason he didn’t pull the trigger, and by the time he looked up there really was not a place for him on the team as a scholarship player in 2009. IU’s class is very talented and deep, and while it would be nice to keep Van Treese in the state, his skills were very closely replicated by Bobby Capobianco and Derek Elston. Lesson to learn: you snooze, you lose.