Gavin Schilling Picks Up A Pair Of Pac-12 Scholarship Offers

By Roy & Harv Schmidt

November 19, 2011

10:15 P.M. CST

Word has now officially reached the west coast as to how hot a recruiting commodity Gavin Schilling is.  We say that in light of the fact that the 6'9 2013 forward from De LaSalle Institute in Chicago has added a pair of scholarship offers from Pac-12 schools to his collection.  The offers are courtesy of USC and head coach Kevin O'Neill and Oregon State and head coach Craig Robinson.

There is no question that the Pac-12 is hitting the Chicago area hard, with De LaSalle being one of the schools that they have made a focal point.  O'Neill has long been a recruiting fixture in Chicago going all the way back to when he was Lute Olson's top assistant at Arizona and later held head coaching positions at Marquette and Northwestern.  Oregon State, meanwhile, continues to recruit the Chicago area aggressively under the direction of Robinson and assistant coach Nate Pomeday.

Getting back to Schilling, in addition to the Trojans and Beavers he also sports previous offers from Illinois and DePaul.  He also recently took an unofficial visit to Notre Dame.  Another Pac-12 school that is showing strong interest in Schilling is Arizona State.  Other schools that have expressed a deep interest include Marquette, Providence, Northern Illinois, Illinois State, Loyola-Chicago, Xavier and Iowa. 

From what we have seen, we think that Schilling brings a lot of positive intangibles to the table.  He has a bit of a mean streak in him which he channels in a positive way--it seems to motivate him to play hard, mix things up and not back down from a challenge.  Schilling also has the ability to face up and knock down shots from 3-point range although he does the bulk of his damage in the paint.   

Schilling's De LaSalle squad checks in as our preseason #3 team in the Chicago area behind only Simeon and Proviso East.  Right now, we compare Schilling to a younger version of the University Of Illinois' Meyers Leonard.  With that being said, we don't see Schilling's list of offers slowing down any time soon.