College Commitment: Luke Arzner (2019 McMinnville HS)
Luke Arzner may be suiting up with an unsigned senior team in AAU ball this spring. The 6-foot-3, 175-pound guard showed off his stuff this past weekend at the Portland Classic playing with a Hoop Salem team. But Arzner won’t be unsigned much longer. After making a recent campus visit, he’s made a verbal commitment and will be signing to play his college basketball in-state.
“I’m going to be committing to OIT,” Arzner said. “I’ve gotten the papers and they are going to come down for me to sign. They’ve been a college I’ve wanted to go to for a year now and I (went on a visit) Thursday and got my scholarship then, so I said I wanted to sign.”
Arzner noted that he first started hearing from OIT last summer but things really started to heat up the last two or three weeks. The Hustlin’ Owls, fresh off a runner-up finish in the NAIA Division II tournament, brought him on campus and Arzner decided he liked what he saw.
“I just love the guys, the atmosphere, and the coach – all of that is really good,” Arzner said. “It’s a great basketball atmosphere. He tells me that he wants 6-3 to 6-6 guards and I feel like I fit in well as I’ll be a 2-3 guard. I want to put on some weight – I want about 20 pounds in the next five months or so. Those guys are big in college so I trying to work on that.”
The reward of a college scholarship makes up for what was a bit of a tough year for Arzner and McMinnville as the Grizzlies came into the year with high expectations but missed the post-season. The senior looks at the glass that’s half-full however as the skills of the always-athletic guard started to really come together.
“It was kind of tough having four of our guys suspended in the beginning so we didn’t have team chemistry, but we got it back at the end of the year probably like the last five games but it was a little late,” Arzner said. “I feel my year went way better than last year. I feel like I grew as a player a lot and I thought I just really evolved overall.”
Arzner ranks as the #43 player in the PrepHoops Oregon Class of 2019 rankings.