High-scoring Los Angeles guard Gerry Blakes has become the fourth academic casualty — at least for now — among the Hawaii basketball team’s recruiting class for the upcoming season.
Blakes, out of Morningside High School, said on Sunday he will be attending a prep school in Dallas starting in September to make up a class he needs to enroll at UH starting in the semester break in December.
If successful, he could join the team in time for Western Athletic Conference play.
"I was very disappointed (when I didn’t get in for the fall)," Blakes said.
"I was actually supposed to be there in the summer to help my team out in China, but that didn’t go through either.
"I’m just really disappointed and am trying to get there as soon as possible."
The 6-foot-4 Blakes, an early signee with UH last fall, averaged about 23 points and three assists per game as a senior at Morningside.
Once Blakes attends a prep school, his recruiting opens up again and other schools can make a run at him. But he said his loyalty to Hawaii hasn’t swayed.
"I haven’t thought of anything different. I don’t see why it would change," he said.
UH coach Gib Arnold, who arrived in Honolulu earlier Sunday from the Warriors to Asia tour, couldn’t be immediately reached for comment on Blakes. But Arnold has consistently defended his high-risk, high-reward recruiting philosophy as a sound one in the long term.
All told, four of the six UH signees for the 2011-12 season — swingman DeShawn Mitchell, power forward Ronnie Stevens, small forward Dillon Biggs and Blakes — won’t be with the Rainbow Warriors once official practices begin in October. UH still hopes to eventually gain the services of the latter three.
