Shooting Guard

Katie Rutan, a 5-foot-8 shooting guard from Xavier, is transferring to Maryland, Terps coach Brenda Frese announced Thursday. Rutan played two seasons at Xavier, shooting nearly 40 percent from beyond the 3-point line. "Katie has a chance to bring something to our team that will fill a need — a pure shooter," Frese said. "She's the kind of player who loves to be in the gym getting shots up and always thinks she's going to make her next one. " She averaged nearly 8.0 points per game as a Musketeer and was an Atlantic-10 All-Rookie selection as a freshman.

Editor's note: Each week, InsideMdSports.com provides this blog with a Maryland recruiting feature that previously appeared as premium content on its site. It's unknown whether or not Mark Turgeon will add another guard to his two-man 2013 class, but as expected, the Terps are seeing what's out there. Mark Alstork , a 6-foot-4 guard from Thurgood Marshall High in Dayton, Ohio, recently heard from Terps assistant Bino Ranson. “He just said he was interested and he wanted to see some film.

St. John's loss could potentially be Maryland's gain. Darrick Wood , a 6-foot-4 shooting guard, withdrew his commitment to the Red Storm late last week. According to FiveStarBasketball.com, the Terps reached out to the Washington native soon after . Since slashing guard Darrick Wood re-opened his recruitment last night, he has already heard from three high-major programs -  Connecticut ,  Maryland  and  Memphis . Rivals.com ranks Wood a four-star prospect, the No. 20 shooting guard in the 2012 class and the No. 104 player nationally.

The Washington Wizards insist they aren't wedded to any prospect for the third overall pick, and they remain at the mercy of what the Charlotte Bobcats decide to do ahead of them - whether it's take Kansas junior and Washington native Thomas Robinson or trade down to let another team possibly grab Florida shooting guard Bradley Beal. But the Wizards have three players they are strongly considering: the unassuming and sharpshooting Beal; the polished perimeter scorer Harrison Barnes of North Carolina; and the defensive-minded and grittyMichael Kidd-Gilchrist of Kentucky.

Despite growing up a little more than an hour away from College Park, Devon Branch had never attended a Maryland basketball game. That changed last Friday when the 2008 Aberdeen grad took an unofficial visit to see the Terps take on Radford. “It was pretty fun,” said Branch, a sophomore shooting guard at Cloud County Community College in Concordia, Kan. “They had a nice atmosphere, especially for Christmas break with not a lot of students there. They had a pretty good crowd.” The Terps just recently started pursuing Branch, an All-Harford County player who missed NCAA qualifying standards coming out of high school and worked at a Holiday Inn in Aberdeen for a year before resurfacing at Cloud County.

Maryland remains in the mix for a top shooting guard target, and the Terps' stiffest competition appears to be the school where this player was originally committed. NBE Basketball Report caught up with Darrick Wood at the National Prep School Invitational, and the Washington native and Bridgton Academy guard discussed his updated list of schools . As it stands Wood still cites St. John's as the leader in his recruitment but is also mulling offers from Connecticut, Washington, Texas, Memphis, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Oregon State, Maryland, Georgetown, and Providence.

Chris Turner had to know what Sunday's Charm City Challenge boys high school basketball all-star game held for him when he got into town Friday and saw the rosters of the local and U.S. teams. Turner was the second-shortest player on the U.S. squad, which meant he was going to spend most of his afternoon matched up on smaller and, in most cases, quicker guards, a formula that could have meant disaster because as Wilt Chamberlain once famously noted, "Nobody loves Goliath." At 6 feet 5, Turner is no Goliath.

Shooting guard Lionel Perkins had a good season for Bel Air last year, averaging 13.1 points per game, but he wanted to contribute more this season. So Perkins went to work, putting in tireless hours throughout the summer. The work paid off, as Perkins has improved to averaging 19.1 points per game and combines with top-scorer Donn Hill (20.1) in giving the Bobcats a tough duo to defend. Perkins is considering playing basketball at colleges such as McDaniel, Villa Julie and Salisbury, and wants to be a sports trainer.

With their need for a point guard apparently satisfied by the recent acquisition of Michael Adams from the Denver Nuggets, the Washington Bullets will be hoping to obtain either a shooting guard or "the best player available" with the 19th selection in the NBA draft tonight."

WASHINGTON - The NBA's hottest team has also become one of its most infirm. The Washington Wizards have won nine straight games, tying a franchise record, but have now lost shooting guard Richard Hamilton with a partially torn groin muscle. The injury to Hamilton, who could miss between three and four weeks, follows a broken left leg to power forward Christian Laettner. Hamilton suffered the injury in Friday night's win at Orlando and thought it was a badly pulled muscle. A magnetic resonance imaging test taken yesterday by team doctor Stephen Haas revealed the tear.

For a guy who just lived through a 1-31 season in his first year as a Division I head coach, Pat Skerry seems oddly optimistic. But for the second-year Towson men's basketball coach, staying positive is a surprisingly easy thing to do. Just steps away from his second-floor Towson Center office, construction continues on the state-of-the-art Tiger Arena , which is scheduled to open Aug. 1, 2013. Skerry says he couldn't be happier about the support his program receives from the athletic department and the university's administration.

Maryland shooting guard target Aaron Harrison scored 42 points (including 35 in the second half) in the Houston Defenders' win over Net Gain Sports at Under Armour's Are You From Here? Classic near Dallas. Rivals.com's Eric Bossi weighed in on Harrison's performance . You name a way that a high school, or high-level college, shooting guard could possibly be expected to score the ball and Harrison did it. He used his 6-foot-5 size and strength to overwhelm guys, he drained deep jumpers and he did everything in between while playing like a young Chauncey Billups . Check out highlights of Harrison's game, courtesy of HoopMixTape.com, below.

Maryland's 11-point win over Albany last season featured the debut of Alex Len , but was an otherwise unremarkable non-conference game for the Terps. For Great Danes guard Logan Aronhalt , however, the late-December matchup was unforgettable. “It was a fun game to play in,” Aronhalt said. “It was definitely one of those experiences that gave me goose bumps, playing in front of so many people in a nice arena against a program with such a rich tradition.” Aronhalt, who finished with 13 points and six rebounds, thought back to his first and only visit to College Park many times this spring as he considered where he wanted to finish his college basketball career.

Daisy Alaeze Roland Park, senior, guard •Versatile 5-foot-10 veteran was the top player in the IAAM A Conference •Developed outside game to complement penetrating skill •Averaged 18.7 points, seven rebounds, three steals, two blocks; scored 1,457 career points and had 22 points and nine rebounds in win over Dunbar Repeat first-team All-Metro; four-time A Conference All-Star; signed with Virginia...

Sophomore guard Terrell Stoglin tweeted today that he's returning for another year at College Park . That's great news for Stoglin's development, but is it great news for the Terps? Stoglin gradually grew on me this season. At the beginning of the year I posted a blog about whether Stoglin was going to become the next Greivis Vasquez or the next John Gilchrist. At the time, I thought he was leaning toward Gilchrist - a talented player who thought he was better than he really was and would bring an average Maryland team down.

One of the key cogs in No. 1 Aberdeen's run to its second straight state final four, senior guard Lakeia Hayden is the Eagles' floor director. Although more a shooting guard, she ran the point last season and now shared those duties with freshman Kierra Palmer. She combines smart play and a keen eye for her teammates with a lethal 3-point shot. Hayden, who has played this season with a torn meniscus and a partially-torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee, averages eight points and three assists for the Eagles (25-1)

The career of Maryland senior shooting guard Drew Nicholas has, in a sense, come full circle. When he entered Maryland, Nicholas was considered a three-point shooting specialist. As a sophomore, Nicholas became the main backup to point guard Steve Blake. A year ago, he expanded his game to include more emphasis on defense and rebounding as the Terps' third guard or small forward. On his last go-round, the 6-foot-4 Nicholas is back home at shooting guard, where Juan Dixon resided for the previous three seasons.

Less than two weeks ago, Calbert Cheaney found his space invaded by dozens of microphones and television cameras after a Washington Bullets loss. It wasn't necessarily Cheaney's fault that the Bullets lost to the Charlotte Hornets that night, but the starting shooting guards' point totals stood out: Glen Rice, 38; Cheaney, zero."

Maryland remains in the mix for a top shooting guard target, and the Terps' stiffest competition appears to be the school where this player was originally committed. NBE Basketball Report caught up with Darrick Wood at the National Prep School Invitational, and the Washington native and Bridgton Academy guard discussed his updated list of schools . As it stands Wood still cites St. John's as the leader in his recruitment but is also mulling offers from Connecticut, Washington, Texas, Memphis, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Oregon State, Maryland, Georgetown, and Providence.