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Travis Ford has Saint Louis recruiting at an unprecedented level

Newly hired Saint Louis coach Travis Ford (AP)
Newly hired Saint Louis coach Travis Ford (AP)

In the 13-year history of the Rivals rankings, Saint Louis had only landed one top 150 prospect prior to this year.

New coach Travis Ford and his staff have now pulled in three in barely three months.

In August, they outdueled Illinois for wing Jordan Goodwin, an Illinois native rated the No. 56 prospect in the 2017 class. Last week, they held off UMass to secure a commitment from power forward Hasahn French, a Massachusetts native ranked 139th in the 2017 class. Then Ford struck again on Wednesday, nabbing a player Rivals considers one of the 20 best prospects in the 2018 class.

Carte’Are Gordon, a powerfully built, physically tough power forward from Saint Louis, announced via Twitter on Wednesday morning that he has committed to play for his hometown school. The 6-foot-8, 240-pound Gordon had just recently narrowed his list of suitors to Kansas, Missouri and the Billikens.

One of the fiercest interior players in his class, Gordon was a standout this past summer for the U.S. U17 team that won a gold medal at the FIBA World Championships in Spain. He averaged 11.6 points and 5.6 rebounds for the unbeaten American team despite averaging less than 15 minutes per game.

The key to Ford’s ability to land Gordon was his decision to hire assistant coach Corey Tate away from his alma mater Missouri earlier this year. Tate had forged a strong bond with both Goodwin and Gordon, giving Saint Louis the foothold it needed to become a serious player in both recruitments.

Saint Louis’ recruiting success is bad news for Missouri coach Kim Anderson. Not only have the Tigers finished last in the SEC in both his two seasons, now they’re losing assistant coaches and recruits to an in-state program from a less prestigious conference.

Replenishing the Saint Louis roster was critical for Ford because the program’s talent level has dipped dramatically the past couple years. Jim Crews did an admirable job of holding the team together after Rick Majerus’ tragic death, but he had little success recruiting once the former regime’s players graduated.

The last time a Saint Louis prospect as heralded as Gordon stayed home and played for the Billikens, it was heralded guard Larry Hughes way back in 1997. Hughes played one season of college basketball, averaging 20.9 points per game and leading Saint Louis to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Saint Louis can only hope landing prized hometown recruits becomes more than a once-every-two-decades occurrence in the future.

The way Ford is recruiting, perhaps it will be.

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!