Absolute Steals

Some local small college basketball programs recently got some big-time bargains in the recruiting game when Concordia up in Ann Arbor signed Orchard Lake St. Mary's Justin Barrows and UofM-Dearborn inked Southfield Bradford's Eric Murphy.

Both Barrows (6-foot-7) and Murphy (6-foot-5) are athletic forwards who can equally hurt opponents from the outside with silky smooth 3-point bombs and wicked aggressive moves to the rack.

In Burney's mind, there's no doubt they both also have D1 skill sets.

Murphy simply didn't get enough exposure at Bradford.

Barrows, on the other hand, was being courted by some of the big boys before falling victim to an unfortunate Achilles tear mid-winter that for all intents and purposes derailed his road to the D1 level. When he was a junior in 2011, Barrows was St. Mary's second-leading scorer and leading rebounder on an Eaglets squad that made a run into the Elite 8. This season, Barrows was St. Mary's top scoring threat until he went down with his injury in early January.

Despite Murphy not playing in a high-profile prep program like Barrows did at OLSM, he was unquestionably a high-profile player during his time at Bradford, an up-and-coming Class C team down on 9 Mile and Telegraph. A major reason for the Bulldogs ascension up the local high school ranks has been, yep, you guessed it, my man E-MONEY!!!

Burney wishes both of these MEGA BALLERS the best of luck at the college level!!!