Boys basketball class of 2021 is in high demand
Arizona State. Kansas State. Texas A&M. Miami.
These are all high-major college basketball programs that historically have recruited sparsely and with little success in Wisconsin. It wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary to have an entire year of recruiting go by without hearing any of those schools tied to the state’s top high school players.
This year, however, has been anything but ordinary.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought with it many changes to how the college recruiting process has looked this spring and summer.
Limited to recruiting via text and direct messaging and video chats, coaches are seemingly less bound to geographic proximity than usual. Add in a highly-talented 2021 class of players and a group of AAU or high school coaches committed to getting their players’ names to college coaches, and you’ve got a recipe for a recruiting period that involves all corners of the country.
NCAA Division-I scholarship offers have been seemingly flying off the shelves for nearly a dozen players for about the past six weeks.
Here is an updated look at which programs that don’t traditionally recruit heavily in Wisconsin are now doing so with the class of 2021. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of area players holding Division-I offers, but rather a look into a growing trend in the game.
Kobe Johnson, Nicolet
At the outset of Johnson’s sophomore season, older brother and Duke recruit Jalen Johnson told me that “soon they’re going to be paying attention to him.” Jalen was referencing high-major colleges, and
a year and a half later, he’s been proven right.
Johnson, a 6-5 point guard, has received high-major offers from California, Kansas State and TCU in the last month. None of those schools has had a player from Wisconsin in the last 20 years, but there are reasons to see why each could be a good fit for Johnson.
Logan Landers, Cedarburg
The 6-foot-10 big man joins Johnson as the two Wisconsin players holding an offer from TCU. A senior-year transfer from Brookfield Academy, Landers holds a bevy of offers from schools that don’t traditionally pull players from this state:
❚ He’s one of four Milwaukee-area players to have been offered by USC.
❚ Miami (FL) was the most recent reported offer. The Hurricanes have not landed a Wisconsin prep commit in the 2000s, although South Milwaukee’s Trey McKinney-Jones transferred into the program.
❚ Former Marquette head coach Buzz Williams, now the coach at Texas A&M, appears to be looking to make ins again in an area with which he is well familiar. He has offered Landers, as well as Racine St. Catherine’s point guard Tyrese Hunter and former Milwaukee Washington forward Michael Foster in the class of 2021. 2013 Dominican graduate Duane Wilson played his senior year at A&M after transferring from Marquette and is the lone Wisconsinite to play in College Station in the 20-year period.
❚ Landers has also been offered by Houston and Missouri. Neither has had a scholarship recruit from the state in the 2000s.
Tyrese Hunter, Racine St. Catherine’s
Hunter has no shortage of options in front of him. The do-it-all point guard has been offered by programs that have a pipeline in the state, like Marquette and Iowa State, and those who do not. Arizona State, Connecticut, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Florida, Miami (FL) and Northwestern are all programs that had no more than one signee out of a Wisconsin high school in the last 20 years but have offered Hunter.
Brandin Podziemski, St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy
Last week, Podziemski added an Arizona State offer, making the shooting guard the fifth player from the area to be offered by the Sun Devils in the class.
That number is more than the players in the class from the state offered by Marquette and Wisconsin combined.
James Graham, Nicolet
Since late May, Graham has been offered by Arizona State, Butler, Georgetown, Iowa and Oregon. He is quite literally getting looks from all parts of the country; the 16 high-major programs to have offered Graham since May began have combined to sign just nine Wisconsin players out of high school over the last 20 years.
David Joplin, Brookfield Central
The 6-foot-7 high flyer has been on Marquette’s radar for a while now, but has yet to receive an offer from the Golden Eagles. He joins Baldwin, Graham and Landers in holding a Missouri offer and is also being recruited heavily by Butler, whose last prep signee from Wisconsin was Marquette forward Andy Grunst in 2001.
Patrick Baldwin Jr. and Michael Foster
These two are the outliers of the class in that they have been recruited heavily by top college programs since their freshman years and are ranked as top-10 prospects in the entire class. Baldwin, a forward for Sussex Hamilton, and Foster, who now attends Hillcrest Prep in Phoenix, are among the highest-rated recruits in the online rankings era, so it’s no surprise to see the likes of Duke, North Carolina and Kansas extending offers.
What does it all mean?
In the end, how much does a college program’s history and success of recruiting in a specific state matter?
That answer depends on the player. Some schools — think Iowa State or North Dakota State — can point to a wellestablished track record of turning players from Wisconsin into successful college (and occasionally pro) players. And sometimes it can be the proximity of those schools to home that play a role in the decision-making process.
But it can all also matter very little or even not at all. A final decision on where to play almost always comes down to what recruits call “the right fit”, which takes into account many different factors such as coaching, playing style and team culture; track record of recruiting in the state isn’t usually at the high end of that list.
What this recruiting period has shown is that there is talent in both the area and state, and with the help of committed AAU and high school coaches getting names and film circulated, college programs that haven’t dipped their toes in Wisconsin very often recently now see it worth it to dabble in America’s Dairyland.
Will the players end up at some of those schools? Only time will tell.