Roth Picks Hoosiers

Indiana has received some very good news from Matt Roth, who announced at a Wednesday afternoon press conference that he's headed to Bloomington to play his college basketball...

Matt Roth is headed to Bloomington.

The 6-3 shooting guard from Washington H.S. announced at a press conference this afternoon that he picked Coach Kelvin Sampson’s program over Bradley. A member of the Indiana Elite AAU squad, Roth averaged 21.1 points as a junior, helping his team to a 27-2 record.

Earlier, Roth told HoosierNation.com that the decision was ultimately going to come down whether he wanted to step in right away at a school like Bradley or St. Louis (his other finalist) and be a main cog right away, or take on the challenge of playing at an elite program such as IU.

“You just have to decide what’s best for you and the best opportunity,” Roth said. “It depends on how big of a challenge I want. Do I think it’s going to be a big challenge to step in right away and be the guy everyone is looking to at one of the smaller schools, or come into a big school and have the challenge where people don’t expect a lot and you can go out and surprise people?”

It appears Roth decided to tackle the bigger challenge of Bloomington. He joins Devin Ebanks and Bud Mackey in the Hoosiers’ 2008 recruiting class, giving Coach Kelvin Sampson a trio of perimeter oriented players for next fall.

Indiana is expected to sign at least one more player in the ’08 class, and it is expected to be a big man. The most coveted commodity appears to be Washington, Ind., power forward Tyler Zeller, a teammate of Roth’s on the Indiana Elite AAU squad. Roth admitted that the subject of getting both to Bloomington has come up with Sampson, but it’s not the reason the Hoosiers went after the sharp-shooting guard.

“At first (Sampson) kind of (talked about getting both Roth and Zeller), but he really stressed he’s recruiting Matt Roth for Matt Roth,” he said. “He’s not trying to land a combo. If it happens, it happens.”

It likely won’t be until at least next month before IU finds out about Zeller’s intentions, but they know what they’re getting with Roth. He was a 48 percent shooter from behind the arc a year ago and he’s made strides throughout his prep career.

“I’ve put on some weight and muscle,” Roth said. “I’ve worked on my athletic ability, strength, quickness, explosion and getting up above the rim. I spend a lot of time working on my game at the high school. Ball handling, passing, my defense, everything like that. When I walk into the gym, the first thing I do is pick up two balls and do ball handling. No matter how good you are, you can always get better.”

Indiana, meanwhile, looks to be a better team with its latest addition.