Lincoln Park’s Pratt adds inches, offer
LA Pratt is a smooth basketball player with a just as smooth of a first name, which, as it turns out, really is his first name.
“It’s LA on my birth certificate,” Pratt said. “It can mean whatever I want it to mean.”
To Pratt, it means “Love Always.”
One college, in particular, has been showing Pratt a lot of love.
Pratt is a 6-foot-4 senior point guard at Lincoln Park who recently received his first Division I offer. It came from Duquesne, whose coaches frequented Pratt’s AAU games this summer. Pratt was offered by Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot while visiting the school earlier this month.
“I was really excited,” Pratt said of getting the offer. “I’ve just been working and working. I knew I needed one shot. I was talking to a lot of schools before the offer. [Dambrot] was the first to offer, and that means a lot.”
There is a lot to like about Pratt, who averaged 13.9 points a game and helped Lincoln Park win the WPIAL Class 4A title his junior season. In addition to his skill set, there’s the fact that he’s still growing. Since the end of last season, Pratt said he has grown two inches. And at 16, he’s also one of the youngest students in his grade. He won’t turn 17 until Aug. 29.
“They like my ball handling ability,” Pratt said. “And [Dambrot] likes that I’m only 16. Especially on the AAU circuit, a lot of guys are 18 and 19. He said that I have a lot of potential. He said he likes my on-ball defense, playmaking, scoring ability and my demeanor.”
Pratt said Dambrot called him a “late bloomer,” even comparing him to C.J. McCollum of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, who played his college ball at Lehigh.
Duquesne is currently Pratt’s only offer, but he has been in contact with other schools, among them UC Riverside, Harvard, North Carolina A&T and UTEP. Pratt is an excellent student. He has a 3.7 GPA and would like to get into the medical field one day.
Pratt could play college ball in Western Pa., but will he continue his high school career there? He is originally from Columbus, Ohio, and said he has considered attending his senior year at a school in Ohio. However, Pratt said Sunday that he will likely be staying at Lincoln Park, the school he has attended since his sophomore year.
Pratt’s return would give Lincoln Park a backcourt featuring two players with Division I offers. Sophomore guard Brandin “Beebah” Cummings has offers from South Carolina, Youngstown State and Bryant.
“Me and Beebah, we have good chemistry,” Pratt said. “I think we have a really good group.”
Reynolds taking prep year
For high school basketball players planning to play in college, the summer before senior year is extremely important. In most cases, it’s the final chance to be evaluated by college coaches on the AAU circuit. Due to the pandemic, players in the class of 2021 didn’t get a full AAU season. And for many, there was no AAU season at all.
Count Chartiers Valley grad and Post-Gazette Player of the Year Brayden Reynolds among those who didn’t get the opportunity to shine last summer. Getting more opportunities to be “seen” by college coaches is the No. 1 reason why Reynolds has decided to enroll at a prep school.
Reynolds, a 6-2 guard, will attend Western Reserve Academy, a prep school in Hudson, Ohio. The school is located about 15 miles north of Akron. Reynolds will take classes and play ball there this season in hopes of joining a four-year college for the 2022-23 school year.
Despite an outstanding senior season which saw him average 24.9 points per game, Reynolds had only two Division I offers — Army and Air Force. Both schools, he said, eventually filled the spots they were hoping Reynolds would fill.
“I had a lot of college coaches call me at the D1 and the D2 levels, but they just didn’t have any more spots available,” Reynolds said. “I wanted to give myself a fair year of recruitment to see where I ended up. Just to see if I had my junior year of AAU, where would I have gone?”
Reynolds made the decision Sunday and was planning on moving in Wednesday. He said classes at Western Reserve begin next Monday.
“The school has great academics, as well,” added Reynolds. “I’ll take college courses and get college credits. I clicked with the coaching staff right away. I think the team is very competitive. They play a national schedule.”
The team also has a lot of international flavor. Last season, its roster included players from Australia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, South Africa and Sweden.
“I think I’m actually rooming with a Serbian kid,” Reynolds said.
Western Reserve’s top player last season was Markus Iiver, a 6-8 forward from Estonia who is now at Wisconsin.