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http://dispatch.com/bball/bball.php?...02.html&chck=t

COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Junior-college forward commits to OSU
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Other schools threw scholarship offers at Othello Hunter in the three weeks after he visited Ohio State. They did not sway the 6-foot-9, 220-pound juniorcollege prospect, who late Monday telephoned coach Thad Matta and committed to fill the power-forward slot in the "Thad Five" recruiting class of 2006.
"I found what I wanted," Hunter said yesterday of his visit to Ohio State the weekend of the season-opening football game against Miami University. "How many people were in the stadium was ridiculous."
Hunter, a sophomore at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla., hopes he and the rest of the 2006 class — highschool seniors Daequan Cook of Dayton, David Lighty of Cleveland and Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. of Indianapolis — will routinely fill Value City Arena someday.
"I wanted to be in a good program and try to get a championship" Hunter said.
Hunter also visited Colorado and Texas-El Paso. He fielded late offers from Kansas State, Oklahoma and Southern California, Hillsborough coach Derrick Worrels said, "but his father said unless he was serious about it, they were just clouding up the picture for him."
Hunter averaged 8.8 points and 5.8 rebounds and shot 54.6 percent from the field last season. He did not play high-school basketball in his native Winston-Salem, N.C., until his senior year.
"He’s got a lot of untapped talent and potential," his highschool coach, Howard West, said.
Matta has not closed the door on adding a sixth player in the 2006 class. Canton McKinley forward Raymar Morgan, who will visit Michigan State this weekend, still has an offer and other junior-college sophomores are being evaluated by the staff.