Richardson is a Ram

League City (Tex.) native Fred Richardson has found a new home. The former Oregon Duck and Lee College shooting guard committed to Colorado State while on his official visit to Fort Collins on Thursday, giving the Rams another potent scoring threat on a team that struggled to shoot the ball a season ago.

Richardson, who averaged 15.8 points, 7.1 rebounds and a 36.1 percent three-point rate last year at Lee College, said CSU was his only offer this go around. But he said he was receiving interest from Gonzaga, Auburn, Marquette, Houston, Penn State, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Florida State.

He began hearing from Ross Hodge two months ago and his relationship with Hodge, Perry and Eustachy picked up from there. Richardson said his relationship with the staff and the idea of coming in immediately to provide a bigger scoring punch were the key factors in his commitment.

"They were pretty excited," Richardson said of the CSU staff's reaction to his commitment. "As you know, the head coach (Larry Eustachy) is in the Bahamas right now since he's the head coach of the Bahamas (National) Team. So obviously, he wasn't there to see it. But I had communicated with him the past two weeks. He was really excited about getting me up on the visit. He basically said that I'm the guy that they needed. Hearing that always makes a player feel good.

"So I went up there on the visit and the night before I left, I told coach I felt like it was the right situation for me and that's how it happened."

He broke down further his relationship with the Ram staff.

"Well, I mean, Coach Hodge and Coach Perry are both from the south, around the Dallas area. So obviously we hit it off immediately. They're both real good guys. Coach Hodge was the one mainly recruiting me and basically, he was telling me everything the head coach was telling me. They need a guy like me that can come in, a big wing that can shoot the ball, play defense and rebound. I was that missing piece, pretty much.

"So I developed a pretty good relationship with him and when I got down there on my visit, I really got to sit down and chill with and talk with Coach Perry, who's also from Dallas. He was basically just telling me the same thing. They needed me and I could do some real good things for them in the next two years," Richardson explained.

His first go around, Richardson held offers from Marquette, Oregon, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt towards the end of his recruitment when he started to play well with the Houston Defenders, but he said he only had a week to make a decision. He ultimately selected Oregon, but it didn't turn out to be a great fit.

After heading home to Houston Baptist for the summer after spending one year in Eugene, he found out he could earn a scholarship at a junior college. When communication with Lee College picked up, Richardson eventually ended up there for a year and put up very strong numbers in just a half season in a very competitive and talented junior college league.

Now, Richardson has two seasons at CSU after spending a year at UO and another at Lee. Hodge discovered Richardson due to his vast Texas JUCO connections, which included a close friendship with Lee assistant coach Marcus King.

He said Eustachy and the staff really liked his ability to score in a variety of ways on the wing. At 6-foot-6, he gives CSU another scoring guard that is a bit of a mix of Daniel Bejarano and Joe De Ciman.

"First, I'm a pretty big wing," he said. "I'm about 6-6, I can shoot the ball real good, I'm a very good rebounder, a competitor, I have pretty good defense, just my overall game is pretty good. What I bring to the court, basically, is my competitiveness and my size at my position, my abilities to shoot the ball off the dribble and catch-and-shoot. I'm very coachable. I'm just a great guy to be around, as far as being able to involve my teammates and being able to take criticism from my teammates as well at times, be able to get on my teammates when we need to pick it up as a team."

Depending on how some paperwork and logistical issues play out, Richardson could arrive on campus by July 16. Otherwise, he will be in Fort Collins for CSU's summer session III in August.

"If I get up there for summer session III, the other guys will be home on their two-week vacation. But I'l be there getting to the gym so I can get back in shape, get in the weight room, get closer with the coaching staff and start really working on my game and getting adjusted to Colorado."