Marques Bolden (right) battles for position with Kentucky signee Bam Adebayo. (Photo: Gregory Payan, Associated Press)
Alabama had a shot at Marques Bolden.
A long shot, but a shot nonetheless.
The five-star McDonald’s All-American big man out of DeSoto (Texas) High right outside Dallas has narrowed his choices to Duke and Kentucky.
“It’ll be either blue and white or blue and white,” DeSoto coach Chris Dyer said Monday.
RELATED: Bolden could decide between Duke, Kentucky ‘any day now’
Alabama was one of several schools to offer him a scholarship along with Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, Oklahoma, TCU and Wake Forest. Dyer said Bolden had given Alabama serious consideration.
“He liked Scott (Pospichal) and he liked (Tide head coach) Avery (Johnson),” Dyer said. “The decisions that kids make, you just don’t know what they’re thinking sometimes. He’d like the whole thing. His dad’s family is from (Alabama). He just did not think that would be the place he could see himself.”
Pospichal, an AAU coaching legend from Texas, did a one-and-done season as Johnson hired former Arkansas head coach John Pelphrey to replace him earlier this month. Johnson coached the Dallas Mavericks. So there were connections, but none strong enough to lure Bolden to Alabama.
“Scott really worked it,” Dyer said. “Avery was great. That was the big pull. That’s the reason he even gave them consideration. It was those two, but for whatever reason, he was just looking at other places. His visits to Kentucky and Duke went really well.”
Dallas Morning News reported last month Bolden narrowed down his choices to Duke, Kentucky and TCU, which won just 11 games last season.
Alabama won 18 games last season and earned an NIT bid in Johnson’s first year in Tuscaloosa.
In the same article, Bolden said he planned to announce his decision before his April 17th birthday. That date has come and gone – and Bolden still hasn’t made a decision.
“He says, ‘Coach is this a life-altering decision,” Dyer said. “‘This could really impact my life.’ I said, ‘Yeah, OK. But you’re still going to school.’”
No one can argue with Bolden going to either Duke or Kentucky. Great programs. Great coaches. Produced NBA talent. However, Bolden could have been the difference maker at Alabama.
Nothing trumps the feeling of winning a national title, something he’ll have a legit shot to do at UK or Duke, but you can gain a great deal of satisfaction in taking a program to the next level.
Odds say he’ll be a great player at UK or Duke, but Bolden could have been the player at Alabama to put the Tide back on the national scene.
