Recruiting Report: Jalen Suggs (2020)
Minnehaha Academy’s Jalen Suggs is a five star Prep Hoops guard being considered by many –including the latest Prep Hoops top 250 – to be the best sophomore guard in the nation.
Suggs has double figure major conference basketball offers including Minnesota, UCLA, Baylor, and others but he’s also got a couple football offers at quarterback and his team is entering the playoffs this week.
Suggs pushed his team (a combination of Twin Cities private schools) to a 6-2 record this year completing 60 percent of his passes with 15 touchdowns against three interceptions. Suggs has also rushed for five plus yards a carry and scored ten touchdowns on the ground.
“Football is going real good,” Suggs said. “Our offense started to connect and our defense is playing real well. I think we have a real shot at going to state.”
Suggs has competed for the 16U national team in basketball and will likely have his pick of college basketball teams in the future, but he’s also been offered at QB by Iowa State and has heard from other programs.
Is football something that Suggs plans to stick with all the way through high school? Often many basketball stars stop playing football to concentrate on hoops (and to avoid potential injury) but Suggs loves the gridiron.
“I definitely want to continue playing football. I’m not looking to give up football or basketball. I plan on playing both for as long as I can. And when the time comes to when I have to make a decision, I will just have to decide which one I want to play more than the other.”
Jalen Suggs has had the University of Minnesota watching him play basketball for a long time. His offer to the school came early last fall but the Gopher staff has seen Suggs play numerous times since he began playing varsity basketball as a seventh grader.
“The Gophers are showing me a lot of love,” Jalen said. “I talk to Ben Johnson a lot and he comes to practice every once in a while. They’ve invited me to the football games, and I love going to the football games.
“I can’t wait for the basketball season to come up as I think they are going to be a great team this year. I think they have a real good chance a winning the Big Ten. The home games at Williams Arena are going to be exciting so I can’t wait to start going to those.
“They’ve been recruiting me pretty well honestly.”
Suggs is about 25 months away from signing a national letter of intent so committing to a college program is long ways off. That said Jalen will be hearing from every program in the nation that he wants to so he can play in any part of the country that he wants to.
What about staying close to home is an appealing option?
“I would say, the Gophers will always be in the mix,” Suggs said. “They are my hometown, homestate team. I have all of my family, all of my friends here. Honestly their program is on the rise right now so I have a lot of interest in Minnesota right now.”
Suggs does have options from coast to coast. Offers from Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, and Memphis on one side, opportunities on the west coast from UCLA, Arizona State, and UNLV, in the south Baylor, and in the Midwest Minnesota, Marquette, Iowa State, and Iowa.
Off those programs (non Minnesota) who is Jalen hearing from the most?
“Iowa shows the most interest,” said Suggs. “Coach Andrew Francis has came to a couple football practices and I think he is coming to a football game later this month. They have been by multiple times and call a lot so Iowa is showing a lot of interest.”
Jalen also does a great job getting out and seeing programs that are calling with interest or that have offered.
“I was at Iowa State a couple weeks ago, I have Ohio State this month, and next month I am going to Michigan and Notre Dame,” Suggs said.
Suggs also saw Kansas and Missouri earlier in the fall, Duke was in to see him in September, and several other programs continue to show interest.
Jalen led Minnehaha Academy to a state championship last March scoring 21.6 points per game as a freshmen and that’s playing with Denver signed JaVonni Bickham as well as Terry Lockett who is right now the most recruited sophomore PG in Minnesota not named Jalen Suggs.
Suggs, Bickham, and Lockett return along with senior Lorenzo Smith and fellow two sport standout Kaden Johnson who has emerged as a top football talent in Minnesota despite of course being yet another talented Redhawks sophomore.
The Class AA level in Minnesota is bursting with talent as Minneapolis North has moved up from Class A, St. Cloud Cathedral brings back nearly everything, Caledonia and Esko return most of their talent led by D1 prospects (Owen King and Adam Trapp), Brooklyn Center is a contender, and we could go on and on.
“I’m very excited for this winter,” Jalen explained. “We’ve always dreamed of winning state and we accomplished that goal last year. But we’ve moved on and now we are looking at repeating and I think we definitely have the talent to do it. We have great coaches in Coach Johnson, Coach Chandler, and Coach Randy (Carter). I think everybody is locked in and focused and excited to get things started.”