For the record, Taran Buie very much enjoyed watching his older brother, Talor Battle, and Penn State defeat Baylor in the NIT championship game in Madison Square Garden earlier this month.<\/p>\n
But although Buie committed to the Nittany Lions just hours after the game, he wasn\u2019t swayed by the outcome. The decision had already been made, just not verbalized.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t the night,\u201d Buie said this week. \u201cI had been thinking Penn State for a couple weeks before that. I just kept it to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing of the decision is irrelevant. The impact it could have on Ed DeChellis\u2019 program is potentially enormous.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-2, 180-pound Buie is a junior at Bishop Maginn High School in Albany, N.Y., where he played with Battle, his half brother, for one season.<\/p>\n
He is also Rivals.com\u2019s 53rd-ranked player and 13th-ranked point guard in the Class of 2010 and the nation\u2019s 16th-best shooting guard prospect according to Scout.com. ESPN\u2019s Scouts Inc. ranks him a top 40 overall prospect.<\/p>\n
Those numbers make him Penn State\u2019s highest-rated recruit of the school\u2019s Big Ten era and improve the Nittany Lions\u2019 chances of adding more top players.<\/p>\n
\u201cMomentum is so important in recruiting,\u201d said Jerry Meyer, a basketball recruiting analyst for Rivals.com. \u201cYou see with a lot of programs, a sort of a snowball effect can take place. One recruit leads to another, and that leads to a few more wins, which leads to even more recruits.\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the record, Taran Buie very much enjoyed watching his older brother, Talor Battle, and Penn State defeat Baylor in the NIT championship game in Madison Square Garden earlier this month. But although Buie committed to the Nittany Lions just hours after the game, he wasn\u2019t swayed by the outcome. The decision had already been … <\/p>\n