DeMarre Carroll leaves Vandy: Bound for Marquette?

A rather intriguing possibility opened up yesterday when Vanderbilt's DeMarre Carroll, a 6'7" forward, announced he would transfer out of the SEC school.

Per the Nashville City Paper, "Vanderbilt announced Tuesday that Carroll will be released to transfer to Missouri, N.C. State, Alabama-Birmingham, Marquette or Memphis. His uncle, former UAB coach Mike Anderson, was recently named head coach at Missouri."

Additional commentary about Carroll 's departure is available here at the Commodores' Scout.com site (for subscribers, I believe).

It looks like Mike Anderson will be tough to beat in the race to sign Carroll, but Crean recruited him out of high school where DeMarre was a 2004 all-state pick in Alabama. Last season for the Commodores, the rangy Carroll started 15 games and averaged a solid 11ppg and better than 6rpg. He led the team in steals and offensive rebounds, and was efficient offensively connecting on 51% of his shots.

Based on what we've read, it seems hat Carroll has many of the same attributes that drove MU to recruit Jonathan Mitchell so aggressively. Mitchell eventually signed with Florida. As an athletic combo forward, Carroll would fill a huge need for the program starting in the 2007-2008 season.

MU is still actively recruiting Lance Stemler, a 6'8" JUCO All-American who visited Nebraska last weekend. He's expected to visit MU, George Washington and SLU before making a decision early next month.

Its unclear if Coach Crean would take Stemler over Carroll, or vice-versa. However, since MU only has one scholarship to offer at the present time this might be an either-or equation.

Here is Carroll's bio from the Vandy site.
Here is Carroll's player page from Sportsline, including game-by-game stats.