Here’s your weekly roundup of notable Maryland football and basketball recruiting links ...

The grades are in for Maryland’s 2008 recruiting class, and not many of the ‘experts’ are enamored with it from top-to-bottom.

ESPN.com gave the Terps a C, though Maryland was able to secure two ESPN 150 players.

Kenny Tate (Forestville, Md/Dematha) is a top-20 receiver, but if prospects were rated on pure upside, wide receiver Kerry Boykins (Chesapeake, Va./Oscar Frommel Smith) might be rated ahead of him in the ESPN 150. Boykins has playmaker written all over him; he has great hands and a supreme blend of size and athleticism. Boykins and the top half of this Maryland class, comprised of four top-20 positional prospects, are solid. Defensive tackle Masengo Kabongo (Fairfield, Conn.) can be explosive off the ball and disruptive down the line of scrimmage, and he possesses the tools to blossom at the next level. Stacking behind him at inside linebacker is Demetrius Hartsfield (Raleigh, N.C./Southeast), a potential sleeper if he can fill out his frame and retain his quickness and fast-twitched athleticism between the tackles.

The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel gives Maryland’s class a No. 8 ranking in the ACC, edging out just Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Virginia and Duke.

The Sporting News is a bit more kind to the Terps, naming the class the ACC’s seventh-best, and putting two UM signees on the All-ACC Recruit Team.

As for the two major recruiting services, Rivals.com has the Terps at No. 32 nationally and No. 6 in the ACC, while Scout.com ranks Maryland No. 53 in the country and No. 9 in the conference.

• TurtleSportsReport.com has three free articles from Signing Day. Sam Latter profiles Tyler Bass, Seth Hoffman takes a look at A.J. Francis, and Mike Hogan recaps Maryland’s most notable recruiting misses for the class of 2008.

• Credit UM offensive line coach Tom Brattan for a decent chunk of Maryland’s 2008 class. According to the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, Brattan was instrumental in landing Justin Gilbert, thanks to a pretty strong reputation he has earned throughout Virginia.

A Dominion District rival of the Judes, offensive lineman Justin Gilbert of Monacan, signed with the University of Maryland. One of the Terps' top drawing cards was offensive line coach Tom Brattan, one of the mostly highly regarded assistants in college football.

Brattan was head coach at Highland Springs High after Al Rinaldi retired and was L.C. Bird's first football coach. He also spent nine years as an assistant at William and Mary.

• The Connecticut Post has a good story about Terps defensive tackle pledge Masengo Kabongo from Signing Day. It seems the Terps coaches had a last-minute scare waiting for Kabongo’s letter of intent.

National Signing Day officially begins at 7:05 a.m., when athletes are allowed to begin faxing their signed letters to their chosen colleges. But two hours passed and Maryland still hadn't received a fax from Fairfield Prep.

By then, the Maryland coaching staff was well into panic mode.

• SCNow.com had a nice feature on UM offensive guard commitment Justin Lewis from Signing Day.

Johnsonville coach Lewis Lineberger immediately took notice of Lewis when he came to the program three years ago.

“He was very raw, but you could see the potential,” Lineberger said. “Since then, he’s improved his footwork tremendously and we’ve been able to pull him and do some things offensively that have opened up the running game.”

A few basketball recruiting links

• The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle’s Jeffrey Martin has an update on Ken Bowman, a teammate of Terps commit Bobby Maze at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College.

ACCORDING to Hutch C.C. sports information director Steve Carpenter, who spoke with Ken Bowman on my behalf because the 6-foot-8 forward isn’t available at this point of the season, Bowman is down to Maryland and Kansas State. Teammate Bobby Maze is a Terps commit, so that might be the allure.

• Ater Majok to Maryland almost assuredly won’t happen, but KUSports.com has the latest on where the one-time Terp target could land.

Ater Majok, a 6-foot-10, 220-pound high school senior center who attends the American International School in Carlingford, Australia, will make official recruiting trips to KU and Connecticut sometime in March, according to Rivals.com. Majok, 20, a native of Sudan who has played for Heat Basketball Academy in Virginia, has also heard from West Virginia, Baylor, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgetown, St. John’s and others.

• SLAM’s Aggrey Sam recently took a road trip to Maryland and D.C. to take in the local hoops action. Sam offers his take on multiple potential UM targets. He also gives high praise to the beltway's basketball scene.

Long story short–and I know I haven’t seen every high school league in the country–I’ll put the WCAC (DC’s Catholic League), top to bottom, against any other conference in the nation. I’m not going off one game, either, trust me.