Keystone Recruiting
Sewickley Academy's Droney Drawing National Interest
By Chris Dokish

After a long stretch that saw very few Pittsburgh-area high school basketball players ranked among the Top 50 nationally, the region has had three in the last two years in DeJuan Blair, Herb Pope and Terrelle Pryor.

Now, a fourth is primed to join that list.

Tom Droney of Sewickley Academy just finished his sophomore season but he is already on the radar of some of the nation's top programs. At 6'5" and 180 pounds, Droney already holds an offer from Duquesne, and has been getting attention from St. Joe's, Penn State, Villanova, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Stanford and Arizona. But the battle for Droney's services could come down to hometown power Pitt and national power Duke.

"Pitt has been great to me so far," says Droney. "Coach (Tom) Herrion comes to all of my games and I've talked to coach (Jamie) Dixon before, and he is great. They have a great program and they are close, too. They have already put in a great effort."

Duke, on the other hand, is Duke, according to Droney.

The sophomore says Five-Star Basketball Camp Director Howard Garfinkel alerted Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski to him after Droney performed superbly at the camp. Droney visited the Duke campus last fall.

"I loved it. It was amazing," said Droney. "Coach (Chris) Collins and coach Wojo (Steve Wojciechowski) spent some time with me, and then Coach K talked to me for about two hours."

Droney's elite passing skills have captured the attention of college coaches enough that he is projected as a point guard. But it's his rare combination of skills, size and athletic ability that makes him versatile enough to play the point, shooting guard or small forward.

"He is a legit point guard at 6'5"," says Sewickley Academy coach Win Palmer. "He's just such a great passer; he can score, he can defend, there's nothing he can't do well. And he has an amazing wingspan. I'm not even sure that he's done growing yet."

Droney will start the AAU season in late March and he will play for a brand new team run by Five-Star and coached by Sewickley Academy assistant coach Derek Freeman.

"When Villanova was in to play Pitt the other week, one of their assistants came over just to watch Tom do guard drills," says Palmer. "After just a few minutes, he turned to me and asked if it was too late for them to get involved. I told him no, and he said now he knows why Pitt loves him."

The college recruiting world knows that Pitt will do anything they can to keep a rare Top 50 talent at home, but if one school can pull him away, Duke could be the program to do it.

"I do want to stay pretty close to home so that my family can see me play all my games", says Droney. "And I really like all the coaches. Plus, they just got a junior from Lancaster named Lamar Patterson that I was just in awe of when I saw him play. He's just a bull, the way he takes it to the basket- very strong. He and I in the same backcourt would be a pretty big backcourt. But, on the other hand, I loved it down at Duke, too. I don't know. I will have to take my time and think about it. I can't really go wrong either way."