Russo will soon make recruiting decisions

New Mexico Junior College talent Cullen Russo just finished up his second year of college basketball and will soon focus on his recruitment of the next level of college basketball.

The Thunderbirds had highly recruited guard junior college All-American Malique Trent (who was just on a Creighton visit and will soon visit Colorado State) taking care of things in the backcourt and Russo put up 11.9 points and 6.8 rebounds a game at the four spot.

Cullen shot 52 percent from the floor taking about nine shots a game and made a third of treys this year taking 45 for the season.

"The season ended up well, Cullen personally had a really good second semester," said Thunderbird assistant coach Brian Lohrey. "I'm not quite sure what the statistics were like for the year but I know in the second semester Cullen averaged nearly 16 (points) and 10 (rebounds) a game. Cullen did a good job and the second semester was really good."

Russo is such an intriguing prospect for high majors because he is 6-foot-9, 220 pounds, explosive going at the rim, comfortable with the ball at the arc, and he can make plays facing fours up plus he has the size to defend the various types of power forwards around the nation.

"The biggest part of his game that has grown is his game growing when he stays in the gym," said Lohrey. "When he stays in the gym shooting throughout the course of the season he is so good. When Cullen stays in the gym every day his jumpshot is so much better.

"Cullen listened better during the second semester and he simply played better during the second semester so the year was good."

The last time GI talked to Russo he was hearing from Minnesota, Kansas State, Cal, Oklahoma State, TCU, Houston, Iowa, Baylor, Fresno State, Morehead State, FIU, and many others. Little has changed since.

"We just got back from spring break and Cullen will be just getting back from being at his mom's place in Arizona. He is going to talk with his mom about his plans and what his next steps are, he's going to talk with us, and then we are going to go from there.

"It will be a bit before decisions are made on what is next. We will likely talk about it and he will make some decisions later this week. Through the winter we had the same schools asking about Cullen that I told you about before.

"At the end of the year he took calls from a couple Pac 12 schools like Oregon and Washington State, I think Oregon State called, Oklahoma State has been calling on him, he's had several."

Russo was born in Minnesota and played at Bloomington Kennedy during the 2010-11 season before heading to prep school. He's then went from Quakerdale Prep in Iowa to Southern Tech in North Carolina (prep) to College of Southern Idaho, to now New Mexico Junior College. Russo's most recent semester in school saw him get a 3.0 plus grade point average.

With Russo being from Minnesota and the Gophers looking for mature, physical athletes, Russo is an obvious player that the Gophers are looking at.

"Minnesota has done a good job staying in contact with Cullen and us, Coach Ben Johnson has done a good job," said Lohrey. "Cullen is open to going wherever. Minnesota is a place that is familiar and it was home but it's not really home any more as his mother has moved. He was born there."