Latest news with #Avent
USA Today
3 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Elite, 4-star PF Julius Avent includes Spartans as a finalist
Michigan State basketball is one of five schools still in the running for a big-time power forward prospect in the 2026 class. Julius Avent of Oradell, N.J. revealed his five finalists on Wednesday, which happened to include the Spartans. According to a social media post from On3 recruiting insider Joe Tipton, Avent is down to the following five finalists: Michigan State, Xavier, Seton Hall, Penn State and Providence. Avent is a four-star prospect in the 2026 class, according to 247Sports. He holds a recruiting rating of 96.94 and ranks as the No. 87 overall prospect in the class. He is also listed as the No. 12 power forward and No. 3 player from New Jersey. Michigan State is one of nearly 10 schools to extend him an offer, according to 247Sports. Along with his other four finalists, he also has offers from Mississippi State, Villanova, Washington and George Washington. Avent is scheduled to take an official visit to Michigan State on August 30. It will be the first of five official visits to each of his finalists, according to 247Sports. Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
San Francisco Chronicle
29-07-2025
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Oh, my God, he did it again!' How A's rookie Nick Kurtz's historic night rocked baseball
WEST SACRAMENTO — In the 66th game of his big-league career, Nick Kurtz went 6-for-6. He hammered four homers. He drove in eight runs, scored six and collected a crazy 19 total bases, tying the all-time record. He's 22 years old, and the Sacramento A's first baseman is the first rookie to homer four times in one game. 'Every at-bat, I did something that I didn't expect to do, and then it just kept happening,' Kurtz said. ''Awe-inspiring' is the word that comes to mind,' A's DH Brent Rooker said of Kurtz's outrageous game Friday at Houston. 'The conversation in the dugout was like, 'It doesn't look like he's playing the same game as the rest of us are right now.' 'He's making it look so easy, and that night, those were quality pitches, guys weren't missing spots. It was amazing. It was impressive. Without a doubt, one of the greatest games in history.' Kurtz's extraordinary season is best measured by the Hall of Famers he's now connected to in the record books. For instance, his 43 extra-base hits in his first 67 games are second most after Joe DiMaggio's 48. The only other A's player with five or more hits in a game with three or more homers was Jimmie Foxx in 1932. Only 20 players have hit four homers in a game. Only nine have scored six runs in a game. Kurtz's Friday output is in the conversation for the best game ever by a hitter, along with Shawn Green's 6-for-6, four-homer game on May 23, 2002, and Shohei Ohtani's 6-for-6 game in September when he reached 50-50 in home runs and stolen bases for the season. 'Having a day like that that not many people have ever done, It's incredible,' said A's and former Giants catcher Austin Wynns. 'That's why it's history. History.' The Baseball Hall of Fame called and requested Kurtz's bat, which he was thrilled to donate. 'It's nuts,' Kurtz said. 'You'd never think about even saying the words 'Hall of Fame' in your rookie year. It's unbelievable.' All of baseball was abuzz Friday as Kurtz was piling up hits and homers, and his friends and family were locked in on every at-bat. Bill Cilento, Kurtz's college hitting coach, and Neil Avent, the scout who signed him, were texting each other throughout, and by the end of the night, Avent said, another A's scout, Rich Sparks, was relaying him real-time information by phone. 'He said, 'Nick's got a chance to hit four! ' and was telling me pitch by pitch what was happening,' said Avent, who was busy scouting the Cape Cod League. 'Then Sparksy said, 'Oh, my God, he did it again! '' By that point, Cilento, driving back to North Carolina from a recruiting event in Atlanta, was listening and watching on his phone as he drove, a no-no he'd never have contemplated except for the magnitude of the event. He wound up not seeing much anyway. 'My phone was just blowing up,' he said. Kurtz has won AL Player of the Week honors each of the past two weeks, he's likely to be the Player of the Month, and he's vaulted ahead of his teammate, All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson, in the race for Rookie of the Year. 'We've talked about 'What if it's me? What if it's you? ' and we're just glad it's an A's player,' Kurtz said. 'It's a great thing for the franchise as a whole to have someone win that award. It's really cool. Either one of us (winning) is great and we'll be happy for each other.' Scouts rave about Kurtz's advanced approach at the plate, especially for a player drafted just a year ago, but the A's knew what they had; assistant general manager Billy Owens was telling people before this season that Kurtz would be the best player on the roster by August. Last July, the A's had Kurtz listed as the best player available, period, and were thrilled they could snare him with the fourth pick overall. 'There was almost nobody in our room that didn't agree this was the top guy on the board, and it started in January, before our draft meetings,' A's general manager David Forst said. 'We were all pretty bummed we didn't have the first pick, but we went around the room and said, 'If we did have the first pick, who would it be? ' And it was pretty much Nick.' Kurtz is from Lancaster, Pa., which is why he's known as 'Big Amish,' a nickname Max Schuemann gave him. 'With any nickname, you've got to lean into it,' said Kurtz, who started celebrating extra-base hits with a butter-churn motion — which meant an awful lot of churning Friday night. (He has actually churned butter, on a school trip. 'It's hard work,' he said.) He moved from Amish Country to Tennessee for his final two years of high school and then to North Carolina for college, playing at Wake Forest, a school with a strong program and an advanced sports lab, especially for baseball. Asked about Kurtz's quick adjustment to the big leagues less than a year after the draft, A's manager Mark Kotsay said, 'I think some of it has to do with his coaching at Wake; he really knows what he wants to do at the plate. He has an approach that he sticks with. 'He makes adjustments, pitch to pitch, and when you can do that and you're 22 years old, it's pretty special. The guys that I played with in my career that were able to do that are all Hall of Famers. Not to put Nick in that category yet, but he understands what a pitcher is trying to do to him.' A moment later, Kotsay dropped another Hall of Fame reference when asked whom Kurtz reminds him of. 'I mean, Jim Thome,' Kotsay said. 'Nick's that kind of a slugger, someone who can hit the ball to all parts of the field, but then take a walk or hit a line drive to left, and Thome could do that really, really well.' Perhaps the most surprising part of Kurtz's back story is that when he was in high school, he was a promising left-handed pitcher. At 6-foot-5, he also was an accomplished basketball player. Wake Forest was recruiting Kurtz as a pitcher when one day, Cilento got a call from Kurtz's father, Jeff, saying Kurtz had decided to focus just on hitting. 'I'll never forget it, I was at the beach with my family and Jeff called and said, 'Hey, I think we're going to put pitching down. If you guys don't want to recruit Nick now, we'll understand,'' Cilento said. 'But of course, we were all in at that point.' Kurtz had power already, but was a little prone to strikeouts. 'He had some swing-and-miss. We'd be telling tales if we said we knew what he was going to be today,' Cilento said. 'But even then, he always made good swing decisions, and what he did at Wake was to really hone his approach, figuring out that what he did really well was hitting to all fields. And he's always been completely unselfish. He'll take his walks, he'll move runners over. He never wants it to be about him.' Cilento takes no credit for Kurtz's hitting prowess, saying the A's suggestion that he move his hands out away from his body a bit had made the biggest difference. 'That gives him the space to do what he does,' Cilento said. The swing itself blows the A's veteran hitters away. 'Every kid can look at the highlights and see how everything is perfectly stacked,' Wynns said. 'Great position, good gather, smooth and just powerful.' 'He's hitting back-side homers at 108 mph, which is not a normal thing to do,' Rooker said. 'There are a handful of guys in the league that can do that. (Friday), he takes 97 at the top of the zone pull-side for a homer, then takes a splitter just off the plate away back-side for a homer. In the same game. Incredibly impressive.' Even more eye-popping, Rooker said, was Kurtz's walk-off homer off a slider from Houston's Josh Hader last month in Sacramento. 'No one hits that pitch from Hader,' Rooker said. 'He's made his whole living throwing that pitch. Nick hit it off the batter's eye in center. That's when I was like, 'OK, this kid might be different.'' With Kurtz, Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom, Shea Langeliers and Lawrence Butler, the A's have one of the best young groups of position players in the game. If they get some decent pitching, they could soon be back in one of their three- to four-year stretches of contention. 'These guys are superstars,' said Rooker, himself a two-time All-Star. 'The base is here for a very good team. These guys are all significantly better players than I am, and they're going to have better careers than I am.' 'I really like the group we have right now,' Forst said. 'Obviously, it's very position-player heavy, but it's a group that we've drafted and developed ourselves, which everybody here is taking a lot of pride in, and I think this is the foundation for the next playoff team. We still have a lot of work to do to get there, but there's a lot of optimism.'
USA Today
24-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
MSU basketball to reportedly host 4-star, top 100 PF Julius Avent for visit next month
Michigan State basketball will reportedly host a four-star, top 100 power forward prospect for a visit next month. Julius Avent of Oradell, N.J. will reportedly take a visit to Michigan State in late August. According Sam Kayser of League Ready, Avent will visit Michigan State on August 30, with visits to Penn State and Xavier following in September as well. Avent is a four-star power forward prospect in the 2026 class, with a recruiting rating of 97.13. He ranks as the No. 13 power forward and No. 80 overall prospect in 247Sports' composite rankings for the class. He is also ranked as the No. 2 player from New Jersey. Michigan State extended Avent an offer last month, and is one of nearly 10 schools to offer him, according to 247Sports. He also holds offers from Penn State, Xavier, Mississippi State, Seton Hall, Villanova and George Washington. Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
USA Today
14-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Michigan State basketball extends offer to 4-star, top 100 PF Julius Avent
Michigan State basketball extends offer to 4-star, top 100 PF Julius Avent Michigan State basketball has extended an offer to a top 100, four-star power forward from New Jersey in the 2026 class. Julius Avent of Oradell, N.J. announced on Saturday that he's received an offer from the Spartans. Avent posted about his offer from Michigan State on his social media X account on Saturday. Avent is listed as a four-star prospect with a recruiting rating of 96.94 in 247Sports' composite system. Avent ranks as the No. 17 power forward in the class and No. 79 overall prospect. He is also listed as the No. 3 player from New Jersey. Michigan State is one of six schools to extend an offer to Avent so far in his recruitment. He also holds offers from Penn State, Villanova, Washington, Seton Hall and George Washington. Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Philips targets double-digit growth in India
Philips is expecting double-digit growth in the short to mid-term in India, a "key market" for the Dutch multinational, a top company official said on Tuesday. India has the potential to come into its top five markets over the next five years, helped by the double-digit CAGR growth here, said Vidyut Kaul, Head of Personal Health, Philips Growth Region (JAPAC, ISC, META & LATAM). The company is encouraging domestic sourcing not only for the local markets but also for its global markets, he added. "We have committed to India being the key market, and we have been both for personal health products as well as our med tech products. We do a lot of sourcing out of India. So, that continues with the ambition. So, we continue to look at opportunities to scale back," Kaul told PTI. In India, Philips operates in the personal health business, including the beauty and grooming segment, where it has various products like hair dryers, hair straighteners, hair brushes, beard trimmers etc. Its health business also includes oral care -- electric toothbrushes, and mother and child care products. When asked about the growth outlook in India in the short to mid-term, Kaul said: "We are looking at a double-digit CAGR between 10 to 15 per cent". The company expects its men's grooming, mother and child care with Avent and female grooming segments to be its growth drivers. "But, in the next 2 to 3 years horizon, you will see us playing an active part in oral care," Kaul added. India is currently among the top 10 markets of Philips. "With this growth, the idea is, we have the aspiration in the next 5 years to get it into the top 5," he added. In FY24, Philips India's standalone revenue from operations was Rs 6,000.4 crore, up 4.64 per cent year-on-year, according to financial data accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler. Its personal health business contributed Rs 765.8 crore, while the 'Health Systems' vertical generated Rs 2,833.8 crore. Its innovation services contributed Rs 2,271.9 crore. Philips, which is a market leader in the male grooming segment, on Tuesday launched a new line of premium electric shavers in India. According to Kaul, the market is estimated to be around USD 400 million and growing at a healthy double-digit of 10 to 11 per cent year-on-year. "We are the market leaders in different categories. We have between 40 to 65 per cent market share depending on one category and category," he said, adding that "we aim to bring innovation". Philips is manufacturing its grooming products in India at Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. "We have a manufacturing line already. We have got 13 to 14 products, which are made in India," said Kaul. Globally, Philips is the leading brand for electric men's grooming brand and India is already in the top 10 markets for the company. Philips on Tuesday launched premium electric shavers - Philips Series 7000, i9000 and Philips i9000 Prestige Ultra, which are designed with AI-powered SkinIQ technology. Its price starts from Rs 14,999 and goes up to 34,999.
