Recruiting Report: Carter Stevens (2018)
After playing just a little more than half of his junior season due to injury, and then forgoing his 17U grassroots season, Carter Stevens saw a slight dip in his recruitment.
But the 5-foot-9 guard — Iowa’s 28th-ranked 2018 — is still one of the state’s most skilled guards.
Though his recruitment has stalled a bit, he says D2s Northwest Missouri State and Winona State are still in contact with him, and some others have gotten involved since last winter.
“Sioux Falls as has been talking to me,” said Stevens. “And I’ve been talking to Kirkwood of late. And then clearly the Dubuque schools, like Loras, Clarke and Dubuque.”
Stevens says JuCo might be an option because his lack of exposure this past year has hurt his recruitment. Heading JuCo for two years could help him get to where he ultimately wants to end up.
“I’ve thought about JuCo a lot lately, because of me playing baseball this summer recruiting kind of slowed down, so I feel like that’d be a good option to give me a couple more years to get good looks,” said Stevens.
As for the D2s, he says it’s all still lukewarm interest, nothing too serious right now.
“I wouldn’t say any of them are close to offering,” said Stevens. “The most recent I talked to was Northwest Missouri State, and that was before the summer.”
Though he played sparingly this past year, Stevens says he’s been working most on getting strength back in his broken foot, and other general guard skills.
“Last winter was a pretty tough one, considering I didn’t get to play for most of the season. A lot of it is just regaining the strength in my foot while working on all my other skills; ball-handling, shooting and just getting my strength back,” said Stevens.
He elected not to play grassroots ball this spring and summer because he played baseball, and he deemed the conflict to great.
“This summer I played baseball, and that with AAU is a lot to handle, so I just decided to do baseball,” said Stevens. “And once that ended, I’ve been working out a lot with the team and trying to get back into the groove with basketball.”
Despite choosing baseball over basketball this past spring and summer, there’s no question that hoops is still Stevens’ number one priority.
“Basketball is for sure my main sport, and in terms of college, I plan on playing basketball,” he said. “But I’m keeping my options open for baseball and I am getting some recruitment for that, but not as much as basketball.”
With still one more season of high school hoops ahead of him, Stevens is hoping he and his ultra-talented team can make it back to Wells Fargo Arena for the second time in three years.
“Even when I was a junior, I was looked at to provide leadership for the younger guys, but I’d say that’s even more so this year,” said Stevens.
“And last season was a pretty tough end for us, so I think we’re all especially motivated from that loss to Hempstead, and ready to get down to state again.”