Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly and two of his assistants strolled into the packed St. Francis gym last week when the Knights basketball team hosted Mission League foe Crespi. They were there to woo Dietrich Riley, a four-star coveted recruit with over a dozen Division I offers. It didn’t matter that Riley isn’t a starter on the basketball team or that he played little to no minutes. Kelly and his staff wanted to show him how important a recruit he was, and they wanted him bad. After the game, Riley, his mom and some family members met with Kelly for about an hour, and talked about Notre Dame’s prestigious alumni association, among other things.

Riley’s scheduled to make a trip to Ole Miss on Jan. 29 and has one official trip left to USC before the Feb. 3 signing day. Riley is still stinging from Florida giving him the silent treatment, according to the Orlando Sentinel. There are other variables one must consider before pinpointing where Riley may end up.

Tennessee was in pursuit a while back, but since then there’s been little to no news about Lane Kiffin pushing for Riley to commit to the Vols. Of course a lot has happened since: Kiffin’s unceremonious departure from Tennessee and his new gig at USC. Pete Carroll’s departure to Seattle surely will affect Riley’s thought process for committing to USC, too, and there’s Loyola’s Anthony Barr giving a verbal to UCLA. He’s friends with Riley, and that could persuade Riley to jump on the Bruin wagon. It was said that Barr was all but headed to Notre Dame. So much for that theory. The guess here is, come Feb. 3, Riley will stay local and pick UCLA.