Ohio State recruiting: State Secrets, 6/4 - Jacob Daniel offered; Pangos Camp, AAU updates

The Pangos All-American Camp was held over the weekend in Long Beach, California. For those unfamiliar, the Pangos camp is one of the top camps each summer. Over the last few years the camp has hosted some of the best young basketball prospects across the country including James Harden, Brandon Jennings, John Wall, Anthony Davis and quite a few other current NBA players.

Three potential class of 2015 Ohio State Buckeyes recruits were in California to take in the festivities. 6-8 180 pound Cleveland Villa Angela Saint Joseph's forward Carlton Bragg, 6-3 205 pound New Jersey guard Isaiah Briscoe and massive 6-10 250 pound Texas big man Elijah Thomas all were in attendance over the weekend. All three have offers from the Buckeyes, Indiana and a long list of other potential suitors.

I caught up with U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame member Frank Burlison of BurlisonOnBasketball.com and had him breakdown each Buckeye target's weekend performance.

Bragg - "Very, very impressive as both a basketball athlete and player who went 100 percent all the time at both ends of the floor. I have to think he'll be ranked about the very best power forwards in the class of 2015 by the end of the summer."

Briscoe - "I don't think he's a point guard but he's one of the best scorers in high school basketball regardless of class. Plays as physically as you will see in a high school guard."

Thomas - "I saw him last month at Nike EYBL (in Southern California) and he was just as impressive as a rebounder and post scorer at Pangos. I would imagine people will start making the Zach Randolph comparisons (bulky, left-handed, great touch in the around the lane, not a big vertical athlete) pretty soon, if they haven't already."

The Ohio State AAU tournament was also this past weekend. Buckeye commit Jae'Sean Tate sat out of the tournament due to a shoulder he hurt last week playing against Jahlil Okafor and the Mac Irvin Fire. Though the 6-5 205 pound guard is waiting for his MRI results to come back, the injury shouldn't keep him away from the court for too long; most believe he was just resting up for the Peach Jam this coming July.

Ohio State target Esa Ahmad performed well over the weekend leading his All-Ohio Red U16 squad to the championship game to only get upset by All-Ohio Black, 71-64. Esa missed four second half free throws that proved to be costly but had an overall fantastic game finishing with 16 points, five rebounds, two blocked shots to go with a lone assist.

Cleveland State and Xavier are just a pair of the many scholarship offers on the table so far for the 6-8 210 pound forward. Esa might not have a offer from the Buckeyes just yet, but the Ohio State coaching staff are in weekly contact with his Shaker Heights head coach Danny Young.

Zach Fleer of Scarberry Media shared the following with me on how he thought Ahmad looked on the court this weekend:

"Esa was impressive. He showed great range, hitting from three quite a bit. He brought the ball up the court and rebounded very well. He finished well with contact and got many second chance points. He didn't shoot free throws well though"

The Buckeyes had 2014 five star shooting guard D'Angelo Russell on campus Monday. The 6-3 180 pound lefty has schools like Ohio State, Florida, North Carolina and Missouri all drooling over what he could bring to their respective teams. So far on the AAU circuit this summer, he is averaging nearly 14 points a contest for his Each 1 Teach 1 club. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Russell is a key member of the Montverde Academy (FL) squad that went 27-2 last season.

In sort of a surprise, Arizona quarterback Kyle Allen gave his verbal commitment to Texas A&M over Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, and UCLA on Monday afternoon. The 6-3 185 pound signal caller may have helped the Buckeyes jump into the drivers seat with LSU for Louisiana dual threat passer Brandon Harris, who visited Columbus over the weekend, in the process, however. After finding out about Allen's commitment, the class act took to Twitter to send his appreciation to the Texas A&M coaching staff (and fans) but wanted them to know he is no longer considering the Aggies:

Thank you Texas A&M fans and coachesyou were great!! twitter.com/bharrisqb1/sta…

— B.Harris (@bharrisqb1) June 3, 2013

Finally, the Buckeyes also offered 2015 five-star defensive tackle Jacob Daniel yesterday. Standing 6-4 at nearly over 300 pounds, the Clovis, California native adds OSU to a list of offers which includes California, Oklahoma and Washington and is only sure to grow. Our own Luke Zimmermann had the chance to touch base with Daniel and asked him how it feels to have a chance to play in Columbus:

"It felt great getting offered by a program like Ohio State with a coach like Urban Meyer. It's like all my hard work had paid off. Hopefully I will be able to check out Ohio State sometime soon, but I'm not sure yet."

QUICK HITS:

• 2014 Bishop Ready OL Brady Taylor is visiting Ohio State today.
• 2014 Ohio State commit Kyle Trout was invited to The Opening on Monday .
• 2014 New Orleans DB Mattrell McGraw is looking forward to his OSU visit later this month .
• 2014 Georgia DB Cortez McDowell will announce his top schools on the 4th of July weekend.
• 2015 Florida RB Jacques Patrick talked to Urban Meyer and is set to visit Columbus next week.
• Monday 2015 Lakeland Christian (FL) quarterback Christian Alexander chatted with Urban Meyer .
• 2014 Indiana OL Drew Broughton and 2015 Illinois RB Dre Brown will attend camp.
• 2014 Minnesota QB Jacques Perra tells me will attend camp the 9th.