Basketball Players Narrow Their Choices

April 15 isn’t just a big day for the Internal Revenue Service. It’s also the first day of the spring signing period for high school basketball players.

Although several Orange County players signed with Division I colleges during the early period in November, some members of The Times All-County team are still undecided about their college choices.

Among them:

--Los Alamitos’ Jason Cunningham, a 6-foot-5 forward who has narrowed his choices to Wyoming, Temple, Iowa, Fordham, Gonzaga and Oregon.

--Trabuco Hills’ Gavin Vanderputten, a 6-10 Australian exchange student who’s choosing from several schools, including Fresno State, Utah, North Carolina Charlotte, Syracuse, Pepperdine and the University of San Diego.

--Sunny Hills’ Terry Mann, a 6-7 forward who’s considering Princeton and Harvard.

--Edison’s Brandon Jessie, a 6-5 forward and two-time all-county selection who has said he probably will attend a local junior college.

Mann, who has a 4.6 grade-point average, has applied to Harvard, Princeton, Cal and Stanford, and plans to visit Harvard in April, said his father, Terry. Mann averaged 22.9 points last season, and probably will attend one of the Ivy League schools.

Vanderputten, who averaged 20.4 points and 11 rebounds in leading Trabuco Hills to the Southern Section II-A championship, will visit Fresno State this weekend and has planned trips to Utah, Pepperdine and USD, Trabuco Hills Coach Rainer Wulf said.

Cunningham, who averaged 22.5 points as a senior, visited Oregon after the season ended and will visit Wyoming this weekend, Los Alamitos Coach Steve Brooks said.

Huntington Beach is ranked 13th and El Dorado is 15th in the latest Baseball America top 25 national baseball coaches’ poll. Huntington Beach was unranked in the preseason poll and El Dorado was second.