Junior College point guard Bobby Maze has verbally committed to play basketball at Tennessee next season. This comes after Ramar Smith and Duke Crews were dismissed from the team just last week.
How big of an immediate need was the point guard position for Tennessee? Huge. True freshman Daniel West and J.P. Prince would have likely been options one and two for Tennessee prior to yesterday’s commitment.
Our crack research team here at VolNation wanted to know everything we could find about this talented guard so we could pass it along to you, our readers. I realize the length is more comparable to a novel than a blog post so try and keep up.
Maze’s basketball career to this point has been a bit of a bumpy one. The last few years of his life have been like a roller coaster ride. Our journey begins in his senior year of high school at Patterson (N.C) prep where he had reportedly transferred to get his grades in order. Scout rated him as a 3-star guard in that class of 2006. Rivals also listed him as a 3-star and had him #135 on their Top 150 of 2006.
In October 2005, Maze didn’t appear to have many offers on the table. He had missed out on national attention by not playing AAU ball until the summer of ’05 and that had kept him somewhat under the radar. However, that summer of ’05 when he finally did get into the AAU circuit, Maze played for the D.C. Blue Devils with Kevin Durant and Tywon Lawson — very impressive company.
By November of 2005 his name was being mentioned with some big name schools such as Georgetown, Clemson, Villanova, and Virginia Tech, among others. Coaches were starting to take notice of his quickness and his ability to get the ball to the basket at will.
Maze finished his senior season at Patterson averaging 19 points and 8 assists, helping lead his team to a 35-3 record. By February, even more schools had entered the mix for his services and Tennessee was one of them. In March of 2006, his coach listed 4 schools in contention to land Maze: Tennessee, Cincinnati, Tulane, and Auburn.
Somewhere along the line Tulane and Auburn were replaced by Wake Forest and Kansas State. In April, Maze had narrowed his choices to Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Tennessee and Kansas St.
“The people that have been on me the most are Wake, Cincinnati, and Tennessee. — “First I want to know if they play fast. I like to push the ball and press on defense. I like to make things happen. When the ball is around I can look for other people. I’m a complete player, I want to see who will let me play my game.”
In May, reports emerged that he would travel to Oklahoma for an official visit on May 18th and then head to Wake Forest the next day. However, as happened yesterday with Tennessee, once he visited the Sooners he committed on the spot.
Once at Oklahoma, misfortune struck right away. Maze suffered a broken foot and had to miss the first seven games of the season. He proved to be resilient and would bounce back to finish the season strong, starting five of the last six games. He averaged 5.6 points and 2.1 assists for the year in just over 18 minutes per game. His stats weren’t overly impressive, but Maze would later attribute his struggles to the foot injury and the style of play at Oklahoma.
It wasn’t long after the season when he received another blow — he was dismissed from the team by OU coach Jeff Capel.
“Bobby and I met last week and we came to an agreement that he and our program will part ways,” OU coach Jeff Capel said in a statement. “This decision is best for Bobby and for our team.” No more details were offered, and Maze could not be reached for comment. However, sources close to the program said that Maze’s freshman season was marked by immaturity and poor decisions, and that pattern continued into the first weeks of OU’s offseason. As one source put it: “Bobby was given opportunities here, not just an opportunity.” Sources said Maze’s problems were never legal and rarely academic. Rather, they reportedly involved practice habits and overall attitude.
Maze claims the move was a mutual agreement.
From Oklahoma it was on to juco powerhouse Hutchinson where he averaged 20.7 points 4.5 rebounds and nearly seven assists per game. He tallied an astounding 218 assists on the season. Everything seemed to be clicking for Bobby Maze.
In December of 2007, he committed to play basketball at Maryland. It was a dream come true for him to return home where he had attended school for several years before his transfer to Patterson.
Just four months later, in April 2008, his career path took another unexpected turn. This time, Bobby didn’t even make it to campus before Maryland rescinded their offer. Could it have been another instance of things just not working out? More bad work habits? Or possibly, it could have been related to the signing of another juco, Tyree Evans.
April 28, 2008 — According to multiple sources, Maryland coach Gary Williams has rescinded the scholarship offer to junior college poing guard Bobby Maze. The 6-foot-2 Maze will now entertain offers from St. John’s, Kentucky, Wichita State, Southern California and Cincinnati.
That brings us up to yesterday and his commitment to Tennessee.
“Stevie Wonder could see this is where I needed to be,” said Maze, who transferred from Oklahoma to Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College last year. “They’ve called me ‘The Solution’ here, so you do the equation: What better place could I be?”
“There’s no need for me to go visit Kentucky,” he said. “There’s not a better situation than this.”
He still needs a few more credit hours to earn his degree but plans on playing in the Rocky Top League this summer where Tennessee fans will be able to get an early peek at ‘the solution‘ as he’s being dubbed by some local media.
Be sure to check out this you tube video. No it’s not a highlight video. Just watch for yourself.
1 response to “Bobby Maze commits to Tennessee”
omg i’m his biggest fan ever. when he first came i was the one to say alot about him and i also watch him play he just put a star in my eye omg . i came to his ricky top games (all of them) and took ugly pictures with him lol but he still in my heart he’s the best ever