Point guard D.J. Brooks had an impressive summer playing AAU basketball with Lamont Simmons and the South Carolina Raptors 16 and under squad. The hard work paid off as Brooks now holds several different offers but is working hard to get better this fall.

Palmetto Basketball caught up with the 6-foot-1 rising junior recently to see what all he has focused on improving the past few weeks.

“I have been shooting a lot before school and working on my ball handling right now,” Brooks said. “I have also been lifting a lot to get stronger and take contact a little better. I am trying to be more of a consistent shooter and overall player to lead my team to more victories.”

Last season Brooks helped lead his Hillcrest Rams team deep into the playoffs before being eliminated by Jordan Roper and the Irmo Yellow Jackets. Getting back to that level and advancing further leads the list of goals for Brooks this fall.

“My first goal is to win the state,” he said. “We just don’t want the same thing to happen like last year. After that I want to average about 15 points and six assists.

After a solid summer on the AAU circuit, Brooks has seen his stock rise on the recruiting trail and plans to take visits to check some places out during the next few weeks.

“I have already visited VCU and Clemson,” he said. “I have a pretty busy month coming. I am going to visit Mercer next weekend, then Presbyterian, and South Carolina on October 8th. I haven’t scheduled any visits to East Carolina and Winthrop but I plan to get there as well.”

Brooks made the short trip over to Clemson last weekend to check out the Tigers and talked about what he saw and liked.

“It was real good, we played against the players and scrimmaged against them for a while,” he said. “I enjoyed it a lot. I liked how the freshman coming in this year interacted with the players, they seemed like a family. The coaches were real cool and I enjoyed that.”

While there, he had the chance to speak with a few of the Tiger coaches to see where he stood on their recruiting board.

"I talked to Earl Grant some and Coach Brownell,” he said. “They were real good, Coach Grant was telling me they have so many guards right now but they are looking for pure point guards and they are going to see how this year goes and we will talk after that.”

It is still early for Brooks who believes that with a solid junior season, he will see more schools become involved but he did talk about who was standing out right now.

I think right now Mercer, VCU and Winthrop,” he said. “Clemson is recruiting me pretty hard but they are still looking at 2012.

After that I would say I hear from Presbyterian, East Carolina and Tulane a good bit as well.

For continued recruiting updates make sure to follow William Gunter on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/WillGunter247