The Curious Case of Phillip Nolan

In August of 2010, it was announced that Milwaukee Vincent standout Phillip Nolan was leaving Vincent to transfer to Huntington (WV) Prep. Marquette and Buzz Williams were among the schools already interested in the 6'10" junior who was coming off a sophomore season where he was named to the All-City third team. But Huntington Prep never worked out for Nolan and he played his junior year at St. Benedict's (NJ) Prep. Nolan had been ready to change schools - again - to Arlington Country Day in Florida in June, but by July, that had changed as well. Nolan had decided to come home, although not completely. Instead of returning to Vincent, he enrolled at Milwaukee Riverside University High School.

That's 5 high schools either in the plans to attend or actually attended, regardless of how long that attendance actually was. It should probably be of no surprise that the WIAA has declared Nolan ineligible to play for Riverside this year on two separate appeals, the most recent being announced this past Wednesday.

After all that tomfoolery, this brings us to the fall signing period for Nolan's class. Marquette received letters from all 4 recruits that had announced their commitments. Not coincidentally, Marquette had 4 scholarships available for next fall. From reading Buzz's comments about all 4 commitments, it sounds like he's more than happy with all 4. That's what made it interesting to see that CBSSports.com's Jeff Borzello predicted that Nolan would end up at Marquette, saying this about the as yet uncommitted senior:

Considering: Clemson, Marquette, Minnesota, Oregon, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Another player who hasn’t advanced much in the process. Seems fickle about making a decision early, which could scare some away.

That led to these followup answers from Borzello when The Highly Influential @Mike_Thiel and I asked him about Nolan:

Honestly, it's impossible to pick for Nolan. Kid bounces around high schools, doesn't take visits, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if he goes somewhere that's not currently on his list right now.

Borzello's second tweet turned out to be prophetic, as later that day he reported this via Twitter:

Phil Nolan tells me he will completely open his recruitment -- fresh new school list -- and sign in the spring.

Of course, fresh new school list only means so much, as Borzello then tweeted a 4 school list from Nolan that strangely includes a Marquette team that no longer has a scholarship available. Now, I'm not going to deny that over signing doesn't happen and we've all heard Buzz say that he never stops recruiting because you never know what's going to happen. But it's a very strange time to see a high school senior say that they're starting their recruiting from scratch and include a school - at least for right now - that doesn't have a scholarship available.