Prospect Watch: Jharett Bloomenrader (2019)
Highmore/Harrold 2019 forward Jharett Bloomenrader had an excellent summer with the South Dakota Crush and is now entering a big junior season of hoops and football.
The 6-foot-5 Bloomenrader is currently at the start of a football season where he’s playing running back and linebacker. Jharett is coming off a fantastic spring and summer season at the 16u level.
“I would say the top moments of this year’s AAU season was just getting to play against the tougher competition and go play athletes that I wouldn’t get to in the regular season,” Bloomenrader.
“It’s just a fun experience and a different atmosphere, and I was named to third team for the Dakotas AAU which was fun. I feel like my play improved a lot over the course of the summer because I was playing against kids that are way bigger and faster than I see during the winter.
“It just really helped my develop my post moves and making them faster and learning how to read the defense better and do the little things I need to get the edge on my opponents.”
Jharett has a physical advantage on many opponents in South Dakota but he’s also working to be more skilled than all of his opponents as well.
“I would say my main focus of improvement is my ball handling. Because I’ve become a strong player down low and just keep need to stretching my game out further and further and I would like to get to the point where I can be an option to bring the ball up the floor as well.
“Another aspect would just be my shooting, coming off screens ready to shoot and just shooting the deep ball as well because I feel like my offensive game is centered around my ability to score down low and I would like to be able to continue to stretch the floor.”
Highmore/Harrold was a .500 team last season and Bloomenrader feels they will be solid this year as well.
“I have a lot of confidence in my team this coming winter,” Jharett said. “We graduated three seniors which played a pretty big role for us especially on the defensive side of the floor, but I’m confident in what the others coming up are capable of.
“We only have two returning starters and a sixth man that played a lot of minutes for us last year. We have one senior out this year who will be a good role player as well. Our point guard does a fantastic job of getting the ball up the floor and just understanding his role as our ball handler. And a lot of kids who played some big varsity minutes last year so there is definitely some varsity experience for our players even though we have a fairly young roster.
“We also have some size in our freshman class this year. But I am very confident in my team this year, I feel like we have the ability to go deep into the post season and everybody understands their role, but it won’t be easy.
“The team still will have to buy into the little things that our coach preaches to us, defensively especially. But if we just follow our coach he knows how to win and I see us having a good shot of making a deep run this year and next year especially. I am looking forward to it.”
It’s early for college hoops recruiting for the most part but one school has reached out to Jharett.
“Concordia University is the only program to talk with me personally so far but a few colleges have talked to my coaches asking about me at this point.”
Jharett has watched college and pro bigs closely since he started playing basketball plus he has a few favorites both at the college and pro level.
“I have always just been a fan of the big men down low and have grown to love that style of play. One of my favorite players of all time is Hakeem Olajuwon and his post moves have influenced a lot of mine and are the base to a lot of the moves I do.
“Hakeem and LeBron James would be my favorite NBA players and my favorite college hooper is Mike Daum right now.”