BEYOND THE ARC: PERSPECTIVE ON MIKE BIZOUKAS

November 8, 2006


As the early signing period for college basketball approaches, several teams are jockeying for position to fill their recruiting classes. At DePaul, they wasted no time after learning that prized point guard recruit Derrick Rose would be attending Memphis in filling their need for a point guard in this class by getting a verbal commitment from Munster High School’s Mike Bizoukas. Munster head coach Mike Hackett was gracious enough to spend some time allowing us to learn more about his program and the newest Big East recruit.

“Michael Bizoukas is your classic pure point guard. He runs the show, he gets the ball where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. Mike
makes all of his teammates better, by making the game easier for them in the way that he distributes the ball,” Coach Hackett says of Bizoukas.

Last season, Bizoukas and the Mustangs were 20-4 under Coach Hackett’s direction. Munster is in Indiana’s 4A classification with 1600 students and finished ranked #11 in the final Indiana Basketball Coaches Association poll. In his six years at Munster, Coach Hackett has accumulated a 100-36 record, winning 20 or more games in three of the last four years.

Last season with the 6’1, 165 lb Bizoukas at the point, the Mustangs captured the LAC Conference Championship and the LAC Conference Tournament Championship. Bizoukas averaged 9 PPG along with 6 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals a contest. During the year he tied the school record for assists in a game with 13 and set the record for assists in a season with 143. Bizoukas was honored as a 1st team all-conference selection as a sophomore and a junior and voted team captain as a junior and senior.

Even with all the individual honors and team honors bestowed up Bizoukas and the Munster High School basketball team, Coach Hackett could only sum up his point guard in this way: “…the qualities that I admire the most about Mike are his toughness, work ethic, and his never give up attitude that he brings to the game.”

High praise for any point guard! We’d like to thank Coach Hackett for taking time to give us a perspective on Mike Bizoukas and allow fans of DePaul and the Big East to get an idea of a player they will be seeing a lot of in the future. We wish Coach Hackett, Mike and the rest of the Munster High School Mustangs the best of luck this season and hope to check in later as the season gets going on their progress.

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BIG EAST RECRUITING UPDATE: DEPAUL

November 7, 2006


VERBAL COMMITMENT ALERT: Mike Bizoukas, (PG) Munster HS, Indiana.

After missing out on the Derrick Rose sweepstakes, the DePaul Blue Demons added a consolation prize in the recruitign lottery when Munster Star Bizoukas Picks DePaul just in time for the early signing period, less than a week after de-committing from Northern Iowa.


Projected 2007-2008 Roster:

Seniors: Draelon Burns (SG), Cliff Clinkscales (PG), Karron Clarke (WF), Wes Green (C)
Juniors: Jabarie Currie (SG), Wilson Chandler (PF), Matija Poscic (F)
Sophomores: Will Walker (PG), Thijin Moses (F)
Freshmen: Darquavis Tucker (SG), Mac Koshwal (PF), Mike Bizoukas (PG)


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DePaul added their 4th commitment for the class of 2007 when Munster HS (IN) point guard Mike Bizoukas decided to de-commit from Northern Iowa last week and take a trip to DePaul over the weekend. When the Derrick Rose decision to attend Memphis became official, DePaul offered Bizoukas and he jumped at the chance to play in the Big East.

Bizoukas averaged 9 PPG and 6 assists last year at Munster, but it was his play this summer on the AAU circuit where he showed his excellent ability to run a team from the point position that caught the eye of many teams. Once the dominoes fell, Bizoukas found himself in the Big East.

With Bizoukas, Nyal Koshwal of Boys to Men Academy, Dar Tucker from Saginaw Michigan and Matija Poscic of Highland CC, Jerry Wainwright and his staff have one more scholarship available for the class of 2007. They seem to be most linked to three players at this time, but none of them seem ready to make a decision for various reasons. Illinois Prep Bulls-eye has the story on Three That Will Wait Until Spring and two of them have some serious DePaul interest. Justin Bocot, an aggressive and athletic lead guard has long been on the Blue Demons radar, but Bocot will wait and see if he has an increase in interest if his academics can be aquared away. Mike Stovall of Marchall HS (Chicago) also has DePaul in his sites, but prep school is a real option for the 6'5 wing. A third player that has been linked to DePaul of late is small forward Leon Freeman, now at Boys to Men Academy. Originally form Michigan, Freeman has bounced around a bit and was originally believed to be headed to JUCO before popping up at Boys to Men. Freeman is an extreme athlete that attacks the rim any time he can.

With a tremendous amount of local talent in the immediate area and the high profile environment of the Big East to offer recruits, it should be an exciting time to follow DePaul recruiting. With another scholarships to offer in 2007 and at least another four in the 2008 class, we should have a lot to report on out of Chicago. A great resource to also check out on Chicago and the rest of the state of Illinois high school basketball and recruiting is Illinois Prep Bulls-Eye. They do an excellent job, for free, on keeping their readers up to date on players from Illinois and the surrounding area and their recrutiting situations. We check them out often to get the scoop on who DePaul, Marquette and Notre Dame, for the most part, are checking out from the area.

As for 2008, keep in mind Teeng Akol, 6'10 from OSNA (reclassified from 2007), Matt Humphrey, 6'5 from Chicago (Hales Franciscan), Nick Fruendt, 6'5 from Batavia (H.S.) in Illinois, Michael Dunigan, 6'9 from Chicago (Farragut), Josh Crittle, 6'8 from Chicago (Hales Franciscan) and Verdell Jones, 6'2 from Champaign (Central) as potential Depaul targets.

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