In a move that was expected since his verbal commitment three weeks ago, 6-foot-9 forward D.J. Shelton has reportedly signed his letter of intent to play basketball at WSU, according to Cougfan.com. As a junior college transfer who started his career redshirting at Cal State-Fullerton, he'll have three years to play three seasons.
We profiled Shelton a couple of days after his verbal commitment, and if I may be so bold as to quote myself, here's the relevant portion if you missed it and have no desire to click on the preceding link and read the entire thing:
The bottom line is this. Shelton's probably not going to come in and set the world on fire next year, but he'll make the team better immediately just by being big and being able to go get some rebounds. And that's not a bad thing.
Of course, that was written before we knew that it's now a virtual certainty that DeAngelo Casto is leaving the program to pursue professional opportunities, presumably overseas. Shelton likely will be counted on for more than just being big and grabbing some rebounds, unless Bone's got another big man up his sleeve who isn't signed and is ready to play right away.
This brings the total in the recruiting class to three, as he joins 6-8 forward Greg Sequele and 6-3 guard DaVonte Lacy. As most everyone knows, the Cougars currently have 16 scholarships promised for next year with only 13 to give; all that stressing out about where the open spots were going to come from seems a little silly now, doesn't it?