Basketball stars visit for weekend

Two Florida players among Pastner’s targeted recruits.

An important recruiting weekend began for Georgia Tech on Friday, when two of coach Josh Pastner’s most sought-after recruits began official visits.

Nassir Little, a small forward from Orange Park, Fla., and Mike Devoe, a point guard from Orlando, Fla., plan to stay through Sunday. Pastner and his staff have been pursuing both since last spring, almost fromthe time Pastner put together his staff. Tech has considerable competition for both— Little in particular — but they’re the sort of elite players that Pastner hopes to win by having developed relationships with them earlier than the rest of the fifield.

Both players acknowledged as much at AAU tournaments in Las Vegas. Devoe said that Pastner was the head coach who had seen him play the most.

“They’ve been the most consistent school to my recruiting,” Little said. “I never felt like they let up at all.”

Little is ranked by ESPN as the No. 14 prospect in the country and has seen his recruiting stock skyrocket this summer, picking up offers from Arizona, Duke and North Carolina. Little has official visits scheduled for those three schools, along with Miami, in September, October and November.

Devoe is ranked No. 56 nationally. He has three other official visits scheduled in September and October with Wake Forest, Ohio State and Florida. He is deciding between Indiana and USC for his fifth.

Tech has three scholarships available for the 2018 signing class, with one of the three having been claimed by small forward Kristian Sjolund on Sunday. Sjolund is rated a four-star prospect (ESPN) from Katy, Texas, who grew up in Norway.