Recruiting Report: DJ LeBeau Jr (2018)
New Town 5-foot-10 guard DJ Lebeau Jr had an outstanding junior season putting up big numbers for the 14-9 Eagles. PHD caught up with him today.
“This year I grew by learning to play a little more off the ball, cutting and moving without the ball, getting out in transition, and overall just not needing the ball all the time to be effective,” DJ said.
The amount of times where people would look in the paper, look on twitter, and see LeBeau had put up some big production numbers once again. It was a really strong over DJ and his team and a year where they learned a lot as well.
“I will definitely take away two things from this season, one is from my sophomore year, losing to Kenmare in the regional championship,” DJ said. “We were rolling that regionals, we beat Stanley who beat us by 30 in the regular season we got them back.
“Then we had to play the favorite, top ten team in the stare Parshall. We pulled that out by four points. Two very talented teams and a third very talented team we just couldn’t get past in the ship.
“Also, losing to Kenmare in the first round of regionals this past year. That hurt so bad, we didn’t come in and do what we had to do and got whooped by them. That was a humbling experience, we learned a lot from that and hope to grow from it.”
LeBeau is planning to put the experiences learned to good use by training extra hard this off-season.
“I’m definitely working to improve my handle, and midrange game so I’m not just a one dimensional three point shooter. Also I need to improve my rebounding because we are not a very big team.”
LeBeau is putting in time in a lot of ways this off-season. He’s training on his own, training with teammates, playing with high school teammates, and Lebeau is playing with the Dakota Phenom Regional team at the 17u level.
“These events are very tough, having to play against the best group of guys from certain areas,” DJ said. “You got to bring it every play, it is certainly a challenge. You got to be ready to shoot, rebound, and defend or you will never make it.
“I have learned what I have to work on for sure, getting stronger is definitely my number one priority at the moment. Working on my handle, my jumper, and getting in there to rebound.”
LeBeau loves basketball and he loves competing. His will to succeed is higher than most so he wants to compete at the college level.
“That’s for sure my goal, to play at the next level,” DJ said. “I don’t have any options yet, I hope to play at a local college around the state. I definitely want to play college basketball
“I am also a runner, I want to place high at state cross county and state track. Hopefully win two more team titles.
“As for basketball hopefully go to the state Class B tournament. That’s always been a goal of mine. Graduate high school and get into a good college with hopefully a basketball scholarship.”
The goals are there and LeBeau has the drive to reach them.