Wake Forest head coach Dino Gaudio was fired yesterday after a disappointing season. For one of its local commits, Central Catholic forward/center Carson Desrosiers, the news comes as a surprise.

Mass Rivals AAU coach Vin Pastore was with the 6-foot-11 big man when the rumors first hit the blogosphere at 3 p.m. yesterday, and says the two-time state champion and Globe All-Scholastic was in "shock".

"I think that's the word he'd use," Pastore said. "You've won an NCAA tournament game, that makes you one of the top 32 teams in the country. I think shocked is the right word."

As for the near future, Pastore and Central Catholic head coach Rick Nault both confirmed that Desrosiers will sit on this one and think about it over the weekend. Pastore also confirmed that Wake Forest interim head coach Jeff Battle has contacted both Desrosiers and his family to explain the situation.

New NCAA rules state that even under a coaching change, a player can only be released from his or her National Letter of Intent if the school permits (a.k.a. "The Calipari Rule"). Generally in these situations, though, most schools will grant a release if the player requests it.

"Division 1 schools are not required to release a player, but it is common practice that most schools do a release," Nault said in an email this afternoon. "We will give this some time before any decisions are made."

That leaves Desrosiers -- who averaged 16.5 points, 13.5 rebounds, 6.5 blocks and 4.5 assists for the Division 1 state champ Raiders this season -- with three options:

1) Hold on to the scholarship.
2) Ask for a release from the scholarship, and hope the school grants it.
3) Take a step back, do a post-graduate year at a prep school, and avoid any penalty.

Given the immediate attention from a slew of big-time programs in the last 24 hours, the third option seems highly unlikely. Because of his NLI, Desrosiers is not allowed to have any direct contact from coaches not affiliated with Wake.

So in the meantime, Nault's phone is blowing up -- yesterday alone, he had 32 voicemails from coaches in the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC -- as is Pastore's -- so far today he's fielded calls from Georgia Tech, Marquette, Providence, Arizona, Indiana and UCLA.

All the while, Desrosiers' stock has taken a jump, up 10 spots to 64 in the latest ESPN national rankings of the Class of 2010.

This could get very interesting.