A Look At Who’s Recruiting Idaho’s Best Basketball Prospects
As we enter the summer portion of the prep basketball calendar and exit spring, Prep Hoops Idaho decided to take a look back at the flurry of signings that took place over the past few months and look to see what type of programs are zeroing in on the Gem State’s top talent?
The 2018 class saw a number of it’s top ranked players sign on to continue their basketball careers this past spring and the programs that locked up these excellent kids are quite interesting when you take a closer look. There is no questioning that the state of Idaho has some extremely gifted ballers from the southern portion all the way up to the north and to each border west and east, yet on the grand scale of things, recruiting the state for most schools in the northwest region allows them to still find some hidden talents.
Also, by taking a closer examination of the list and numbers below, the level of program ranges from division I to the junior college ranks, Idaho’s top talents are being recruited by them all, yet, more so by the smaller school/levels it seems, specifically the junior college ranks.
Of course, any opportunity to continue one’s basketball career is truly a special thing no matter what the level of program is. So, by no means does highlighting the fact that more NAIA and junior college programs recruiting Idaho’s top players is of any slight or a negative comment, in fact, it could be thought of as the opposite. What a large number of these smaller school programs are doing is perhaps scooping up what other’s are missing by not recruiting the state so heavily.
Let’s take a look at the numbers…
With regards to the 2018 class, four division I schools in some way shape or form (preferred walk on status included) nabbed an Idaho player in this year’s recruiting class. We are including our top ranked 2018 prospect Brayden Parker into this mix as Idaho State recruited the big man, but he will first spend a season at College of Southern Idaho prior to enrolling at Idaho State. Aside from Parker, Max Rice (Boise State), Paul Pennington (Gonzaga) and Daxton Carr (Cal Poly) are the others to have inked a commitment to a division I program. Two other players signed with division I schools, but were for baseball instead of basketball Jacob Pfennigs (Oregon State) and Ethan Christianson (Seattle).
The rest shakes out like this (number of 2018 players signed)…
Division II – 2
Division III – 1
NAIA – 3
Junior College – 8
We can see from the data, that the junior college level is perhaps the most aggressive in recruiting Idaho’s basketball prospects. JC programs in Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Colorado all signed players from the 2018 class. It will likely continue this way as programs can look to Idaho to have under recruited kids but with high level talent.
Outside of the junior college level we can see just a few players for each of the respective levels. As recruiting circles grow, we expect these numbers to increase. It is only a matter of time until Idaho becomes more a recruiting angle for programs as we can see in the data, there is a very high ceiling in terms of that.