Hoop talent is opting to play at out-of-state prep schools
The prep school trend has hit Oakland County hard this boys basketball season. What was a small trickle of playmakers departing in recent years could be turning into a situation where the floodgates are opening, sending the area’s best talent on the hardwood out of state to compete on the glitzier prep school circuit. Jaden Akins. Gone.
Tariq Humes. Gone.
Chuckie Bailey. Gone.
Akins and Humes were going to be the starting backcourt at Farmington, finishing out fouryear varsity careers. They would have been arguably the No. 1 guard duo in the OAA. Instead, Akins is now at Sunrise Christian in Kansas by way of a short
stay at Ypsilanti Prep (with prodigy Emoni Bates) and Humes is at Elevation Prep in Indiana tearing up the Hoosier State out of Fort Wayne.
The electric 6-3 Akins, who had a well-publicized falling out with Bates at Ypsi Prep in December after a series of nationally-televised losses for the Nikesponsored prep academy, is signed with Michigan State. He would have been a contender in the Mr. Basketball race this winter if he would have stayed at Farmington.
Humes (6-1 G) was one of the most dangerous shooters in the county the last few years and added more playmaking skills to his repertoire in the offseason, as evidenced by his output at Elevation Prep so far. Bailey,
son of former Michigan and U-D Mercy big fella Chuck Bailey (6-4 G/F), is off to Arizona and won’t be in the lineup at Birmingham Groves in 2021 as one of the area’s most exciting sophomore sensations.
Private schools like Southfield Christian, Birmingham Detroit Country Day and Orchard Lake St. Mary’s took the initial prepschool blows – DCD’s Alex Legion, then a Michigan commit, took off for Oak Hill Academy in the mid2000s, the first local superstore to bypass the MHSAA for the prep school life. Legion played in college at Kentucky, Illinois and Florida International.
Two years ago, Wendell Green went and played at nationally-ranked La Lumiere prep school in Indiana in 2019 and 2020 following scorching nets at the point for Country Day locally during the first half of his prep
career. Green is starting at Eastern Kentucky as a freshman this season.
All-Catholic League wing forward Teddy McCree left St. Mary’s on the eve of districts in 2014, resurfacing at Hillcrest Prep in Arizona and eventually playing Division I college ball at Northern Arizona. Smallschool powerhouse Southfield Christian lost Bakari Evelyn (Iowa, Nebraska, Valparaiso) and Harlond Beverly (Miami) off Class D state title teams in the 2010s to go to prep schools. Beverly would have been a Mr. Basketball candidate in 2019, but went to growing NBA factory Montverde Academy in Florida for his senior year.
The trend statewide began in the mid-2010s when future NBA first-round picks Josh Jackson (Kansas) and Miles Bridges (Michigan State) took the prep-school route, leaving
Detroit Consortium (now Voyager) and Flint Southwestern respectively to test the prep school waters. Jackson is playing for the Detroit Pistons these days. Bridges comes off the bench for the Charlotte Hornets.
Under Armour actually footed the bill for Jackson’s from-scratch Prolific Prep in California, while Bridges headed to Huntington Prep in West Virginia. Jackson’s Under Armour deal set the precedent for the deal Nike made to create Ypsi Prep with the Bates camp.
Many point to the MHSAA’s strict rules on travel and schedule capping as to why the trend is for the top players to leave the state.
“A lot of these kids want to stay, but until the MHSAA decides they want to loosen up the rules that limit the exposure factor in recruiting, I don’t see things going in the other direction and all of a sudden all the
best kids are staying put,” remarked Nike scout and NBA consultant Vince Baldwin, who was a point guard at Southfield in the 1980s. “You got to meet them have way, here. Make it attractive to stay. They see the success their peers are having. It’s on ESPN. It’s on social media. And that feeds into it. Most of the guys that have left or wind up leaving just want to put themselves in the best possible light to be seen and evaluated.”
Tweet of the Week
“If you want to see the definition of a connected basketball team, just watch Juwan’s boys in Ann Arbor,” – Birmingham Brother Rice head coach Rick Palmer of the success the University of Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball team (No. 7 in America) is finding on the court this winter under former Fab Fiver Juwan Howard.