USF Basketball Receives Verbal Commitments From Chris Perry and Josh Heath

USF basketball coach Stan Heath has picked up two new verbal commitments for his 2013 recruiting class, which may end up rivaling the B.B. Waldon/Altron Jackson class of 1998 as one of the strongest in school history. On top of that, the two new commits are from Tampa Bay. That means all four of the current 2013 recruits are from Florida, where USF has done well recruiting (most recently with Dominique Jones and Toarlyn Fitzpatrick) despite seemingly forgetting this from time to time.

The first commitment was on Monday morning and shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone -- it's Stan's son Josh, a point guard at Tampa Prep. Josh Heath, who has a tremendous hairdo, had several other offers from low and mid-major schools, including some Ivy League schools. (Joey Knight from Tampa Bay Home Team writes that Josh also had interest from Stanford, although not an offer.) He led the Terrapins to their first state basketball title this past March, putting up 21 points in the state semifinal game and then recording a 15-8-7 in the title game against Weston Sagemont.

We all remember Josh's older brother Jordan "Lil' Heath" Heath as the team's long-running USF Human Victory Cigar, but Josh should be able to compete with another 2013 point guard recruit, Drew Davis, to get some backup minutes. Plus, unlike Anthony Collins' two backups from this past season, Josh is not likely to transfer if he doesn't think he's getting enough burn.

On Wednesday, the Bulls also picked up a commitment from Bartow's Chris Perry, a 6'8", 245-pound power forward who sounds like he could be cut from the Ron Anderson Jr. cloth. While he continues to develop his offensive game, he's a strong rebounder and could be an equally strong defender. Perry is a three-star recruit in Rivals and 247, and a four-star recruit according to ESPN (who has him in their top 100 for 2013). He had a number of other offers, including current and future Big East teams like Cincinnati, Memphis, UCF, and Temple, as well as Miami, Butler, and VCU.

Both Perry and Heath took their official visits last weekend, along with their AAU teammate Dre'Kalo Clayton from Orlando Evans, another forward who already has a USF offer.