Former St. John’s small forward Tim Doyle, who is considering transferring to either Northwestern or Dayton for next season, remains undecided but said he expects to make a decision around the beginning of next week.
With the spring signing period drawing to a close Thursday, it appears unlikely that NU will be signing anyone before the period ends. NU also had been recruiting a 7-foot Polish center named Lukasz Obrzut, who recently finished a postgraduate year at Bridgton Academy in Maine.
But Bridgton head coach Whit Lesure confirmed that Obrzut committed to Kentucky on Monday after the more powerful Wildcats recently jumped into the recruiting fray.
Doyle had planned on making his decision by last Thursday, but has been taking exams and said he wanted to make sure he did well enough to ensure acceptance to NU before choosing. Doyle, who visited NU two weeks ago and Dayton shortly thereafter, said the two schools offer him polar opposites on many levels.
“Dayton is probably second-tier to Northwestern academically,” he said on Thursday. “But Dayton is a good basketball school, while NU is probably second-tier.
“Northwestern is right near a city. Dayton is in the middle of nowhere.”
The 6-foot-5 native of Merrick, N.Y., chose St. John’s because he liked the idea of playing for a team he had watched for years in the New York area. He chose to play for the Red Storm without visiting any other schools. Now, however, he said there are many more factors at work in his decision.
Having played in Madison Square Garden for St. John’s, Doyle said the appeal of a large venue wore off quickly and that program prestige meant relatively little. But at the same time, he said he would like to play for a winner and thought Dayton offered a better opportunity to do so. The Flyers were a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament this year and recently hired a new head coach in Brian Gregory, a former Michigan State and NU assistant.
Of his NU visit, Doyle said that the academic program impressed him greatly.
“If I blow out my knee,” he said, “at least I got a Northwestern degree.”
Should Doyle commit, he would join center Vince Scott of Arizona in NU’s 2003 recruiting class. But according to NCAA rules for transfers, Doyle would sit out one year before playing.
