Harvey Hale

Offered, per Rivals

09/01/04: various sources report that Hale has verballed to Wake Forest.

08/20/04: Listed as the 94th best player in his class. - Prepstars.com

08/03/04: Listed as the 148th best player in his class. - RivalsHoops.com

07/13/04: Hale averaged 7.4 ppg, 4 rpg, 1.7 apg and shot 8% from the arc. - Reebok ABCD camp stats

07/13/04: "Hale, who has a 4.0 GPA and is seventh in his class, told TheInsiders.com that he is considering Marquette, Cincinnati, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest." - theInsidersHoops.com (1 to 3)

07/11/04: Hoopmasters reveals that Hale's list includes CIncinnati and 5 other schools.

07/10/04: "What's most endearing about Hale is his approach on the defensive end. He can guard both the wing and point positions and loves to lie in wait before sprinting into passing lanes." - PrepStars.com

06/30/04: "Oh man, so many new schools called me last week,” Hale told RivalsHoops.com. “Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Baylor, Georgetown and New Mexico State are just some of the schools I remember. I still plan to take all five official visits in the fall, but I have no idea what schools I will actually visit. There was a time when I had an idea of what schools I would visit, but all of that has changed," he added. "I am also interested in Arizona State, Cincinnati, Florida and Marquette. Deciding what schools to visit will definitely be a difficult decision for me, so I have decided to take my time with the recruiting process." - RivalsHoops.com (3 to 1, to many schools listed still)

06/21/04: "He doesn't shoot or score like an elite player, but few guys can match the defensive quickness or effort of Harvey Hale. The 6-2 WG from Albuquerque (NM) Rio Grande is a defensive stopper, and on Sunday he claimed another victim..." - PrepStars.com

06/17/04: Listed as the 76th best player in his class. - HoopScoop

05/28/04: "Marquette, Cincinnati and Arkansas are the three schools that I really like," Hale said. “Those are three schools that I definitely plan to visit in the fall. I am wide open right now, but I would say that I have a high amount of interest in Marquette, Cincinnati and Arkansas." - RivalsHoops.com

05/17/04: "Hale is an extremely rare talent. In addition to his elite status as a consensus Top-75 player nationally in the 2005 class, the 6-4, 190 pound guard is a legend in the classroom with a 4.0 grade point average." - ASUDevils.com

05/13/04: Listed as the 55th best player in his class. - RivalsHoops.com

05/08/04: "Harvey Hale hopped off a big, yellow Santa Fe Shuttle bus and strolled into Allen Fieldhouse with several of his New Mexico AAU basketball teammates Friday night. You'd better believe Hale, a 6-foot-4, 190-pound junior blue-chip recruit from Albuquerque's Rio Grande High, came a long way to compete in this weekend's Sport2Sport/Jayhawk Invitational in KU's tradition-rich hoops haven. "It took 12, 13 hours to get here," said Hale, New Mexico's Gatorade Player of the Year. "Sleep and watch movies ... that's all we do. You think about basketball and it goes quicker."

Hale, who also plays for the Texas BlueChips, was here last year, when his AAU team fell to California Pump N Run in the Jayhawk Invitational quarterfinals. "It's a great college town," Hale said of Lawrence. "I like the building. It seems like things would be rocking up in here. It means Jayhawk basketball to me," added Hale, whose early list of prospective colleges includes KU, Marquette, Texas, Arkansas, Baylor and Arizona State.

Hale -- his New Mexico squad plays Brandon Rush's Rocktown team at 12:15 p.m. today at Allen Fieldhouse and meets Waco at 6:30 p.m. at Horejsi Center -- is hoping his squad fares well at the 2004 Invitational. "This is my high school team. I'm trying to play hard, get my players involved, get their confidence up," said Hale, a first-team all-state pick who has a goal of making the McDonald's All-America game and winning a state title next season. "I don't feel I have to do too much. We'd like to go farther than we did last year. I knew last time we should have beat that team (L.A. in quarterfinals). I want to do better this time if possible." - LJWorld.com

03/25/04: "The #1 gunner I have seen in the 2005 class with Stanford academics is New Mexico's Harvey Hale, Jr. The 6'4" Abluquerque assassin is a prolific scorer and unquestionably the top talent in the state this year. The versatile athlete is a national Top 100 player who has filled up box scores with big shooting games for three years on the New Mexico high school scene, but this year was an important maturation for him. He allowed his scoring to drop so that he could improve his shot selection and be a better team player.

His 19.8 points, seven rebounds and five assists per game are nothing to sneeze at, mind you. But Hale was putting up even bigger numbers as a sophomore at Rio Grande High School, when he averaged 24 points." - theBootleg.com (Stanford)

02/13/04: "“It really doesn't matter to me where I play. If I have to play the point, I'll play the point. I have to play the two, I'll play the two. Man, I'll play the three, the four or the five if I need to, I don't care as long as I'm playing.” - Phog.net (Kansas)


07/24/03:
. . . the summer of 2003 is Harvey Hale's coming out party. He wants the nation to know what hoops fans around these New Mexico parts already know - that Harvey Hale is something special on the basketball court.

"This is a big summer for me," said the Rio Grande High School junior-to-be. "I want to get a lot of exposure. I want people to notice me this summer. I'm still kind of an unknown, one of those underrated players from New Mexico. I'm trying to get the real big colleges to recognize me."

So far, Harvey Hale, 17, is doing a pretty good job of marketing Harvey Hale. The cotillion is a success.

Last week he was at the Adidas ABCD camp in New Jersey, an invite-only affair where Hale made the underclassmen all-star team. This week he is at the Adidas Big Time tourney in Las Vegas, Nev., playing for a big-time team out of Dallas - the Texas Blue Chips, sponsored by Adidas. The tourney began Tuesday and ends Saturday.

Next week he'll be on the Texas Blue Chips team playing in another team tournament in Long Beach, Calif. "This is an evaluation period for college coaches," Hale said. "They'll all be at these camps."

The coaches whom Hale wants most to be there are the coaches on his list. Yes, Hale has a short list - New Mexico, Louisville, Miami (Fla.), Connecticut, Oklahoma, Arizona State and Stanford.

Not necessarily in that order.

And not necessarily restricted to just those seven schools. The list might grow. "I think a lot of college coaches are seeing the upside to this kid," said Ron Garcia, Hale's coach at Rio Grande. "He is only 17. He has a size 15 foot. His dad is 6-foot-7. His mom is almost 6-foot. "Harvey might get to be 6-5 or 6-7, and he can play a lot of positions. I'm not saying he is a Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers), but he has a game similar to Kobe in that he can bring it down, he can play the wing, he can shoot the three, he can post up, he can pass the ball. "What you have here is a smart kid with a religious background and a good family who has good court sense and can score. "Who wouldn't want that?"

Hale, a member of The Trib's All-Metro first team last season, averaged 20.1 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists as a Ravens sophomore.

Nice numbers, but not good enough for Hale. "My goal is to get in good enough shape where I can average a triple-double (double figures in scoring, rebounding and assists)," Hale said. "I think it will be tough because everybody will be gunning for me next year. I had at least 10 box-and-ones (a four-man zone with a chaser going man-to-man on Hale) last year, and I expect about 20 this year. That's why I have to be in shape. I want to show a complete game."

Hale's game as a Rio freshman needed work. You could see the athleticism galore, but the kid was raw. He put up bad shots. He dribbled himself into trouble. He made bad decisions with the basketball.

And he worked to get better. "What he did was accept the responsibility that comes with wanting to get better," Garcia said.

If there is a key for Hale in Rio's 2003-2004 season, it will be knowing when to shoot and when to pass. That key also might determine the success of the Hale summer ball. "He has a chance to be (a top college prospect)," Garcia said. "He is showing that he can handle the pressure that comes from being one of the better players. He's not afraid of the challenges that come at him. "Some kids that get all the attention become the measuring stick for other kids and other teams. They'll be coming after him."

Hale's attitude is exactly what a college coach is looking for. "I feel like nobody can guard me off the dribble," he says. "That's my mindset, and you have to have it or you'll be stopped. I don't feel like anybody can stop me."
- Albuquerque Tribune