Basketball Panthers Add Fort Smith (Ark.) Northside Prep Standout Ian Carter
Scott Puryear, Assistant Athletic Director For Communications
6/1/2010 4:26:09 PM
Drury's basketball Panthers have added another key piece to their 2010-11 recruiting class with the signing of Fort Smith (Ark.) Northside High School standout Ian Carter to an NCAA letter-of-intent.
The 6-foot-6, 210-pound Carter averaged 15.0 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.7 blocked shots as a senior for Northside while playing in the tough Arkansas 7A-West Conference, where he competed his junior season against current DU sophomore-to-be Cable Hogue (Fayetteville).
Among his top efforts as a senior was an 18-point, 11-rebound, 8-blocked shots night against rival Fort Smith Southside on Dec. 31. He also had a 23-point outing against Springdale, Ark., on Jan. 26.
"Ian is a very long, athletic player who plays with a lot of energy and will blend nicely into our scheme of things at both ends of the floor," Drury basketball coach Steve Hesser said. "We also like the fact that he comes from a great program at Northside and is very academically oriented, ranking in the top five percent of his senior class. He'll be a great fit at Drury."
Carter formed a solid 1-2 punch with point guard Corey Copeland, a recent Missouri State signee, to lead Northside's Grizzlies to a 20-10 record in their final season under retiring head coach Johnny Mason. Carter, a two-year starter, earned Class 7 All-State honors in addition to all-conference and all-district recognition this past season, when he broke a 25-year-old Northside record for rebounds in a season with 288.
Carter, who averaged 10.2 points as a junior for the Grizzlies, becomes the sixth member of the 2010-11 recruiting class for Hesser's Panthers, joining 6-6 transfer forwards JaJuan Maxwell from NCAA Division I Southeast Missouri State and Julius Verdun from Triton (Ill.) College, 6-2 guard Antwan Scott from Wylie (Texas) High School, 6-4 transfer guard/forward Justin Jones from Lewis & Clark (Ill.) Community College and 6-2 guard Shane Rudman from Barstow High School in Kansas City.
Drury finished 23-7 last season, won the Great Lakes Valley Conference West for the third time in five seasons and advanced to the NCAA-II Tournament for the fourth time in six seasons under Hesser.