I figured it was time for a recruiting update so I reached out to Debra Walker, who is the godmother of Betnijah Laney and Eddie Hammond, the father of Sara Hammond.

The biggest news out of my two conversations is that Laney has cut her list of schools from nine to seven as she eliminated Cincinnati and Louisville. Laney, a 6-foot rising senior wing out of Smyrna (Del.) High.

When I spoke with Laney at the U.S. Under-17 practice session last month, Cincinnati and Louisville were on Laney's list along with UConn, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Penn State, Rutgers, Virginia and West Virginia.

The plan is for Laney to go through the process of chatting with coaches during upcoming home visits, narrow her list further and take her five official visits.

As for Hammond, a 6-foot-2 rising senior forward for Rockcastle County High in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky, she lists Vanderbilt, Western Kentucky, Louisville and UConn as her top schools with Notre Dame and Maryland also in the mix according to her father.

Hammond is planning to visit Louisville on Sept. 1 while Eddie Hammond said that UConn coach Geno Auriemma would like to have Sara up for a visit around the time that Auriemma will be coaching the U.S. in exhibitions against Australia and Spain on Sept. 10 and 12 respectively at the XL Center in Hartford. However, the Hammonds have yet to decide if they'll make it up to Connecticut that weekend.

The timing makes sense since Auriemma will be in the Czech Republic coaching the U.S. in the FIBA World Championships from Sept. 23-Oct. 3 and will have a training camp at a location yet to be announced from Sept. 13-22 so the official visits would need to be either done in the first two weekends of September or after Auriemma returns to Connecticut in early October.

UConn already has commitments from guard/forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis out of Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, Calif. and guard Brianna Banks, who plays for Northgate High in Newnan, Ga. Besides Hammond and Laney, other players on UConn's recruiting radar in the Class of 2011 include post players Elizabeth Williams and Kiah Stokes. With nine players on scholarship for next year, UConn could take as many as six players but I'd be surprised to see a class of more than four. If UConn can get a combination of either Williams or Stokes and either Hammond or Laney to go with Mosqueda-Lewis and Banks, the UConn staff would be rather delighted. It would also leave four available scholarships for a talent-rich Class of 2012.