Recruiting Report: Houston Emory (2021)

When picking a school to attend to help your recruitment and development of a basketball player, it’s important to look at the past players and how they have faired. If you’re a big man on the east coast, it’s hard to find a place who has had as much success as Blue Ridge over the past five seasons. For rising junior Houston Emory, it’s all about waiting his turn and playing everything out.

Last season as a sophomore, Emory played sparingly behind East Tennessee State commit Jaden Frazier. Frazier played with the likes of Aamir Simms (Clemson),who played with Mamadi Diakite (UVA), and Blue Ridge also has a senior in 6’11” Sasha Glushkov and a rising sophomore in 6’8” Maliq Brown to go along with 6’9” Emory.

It’s become somewhat of a staple at Blue Ridge to have multiple big men, and with Emory waiting his turn and developing the way he has he’s set to have a big junior season next year.

“I’m definitely going to get more time and I’m going to have to step up in all areas of my game,” Emory said about this up coming season. “I’m going to leave the scoring to our other Sasha [Gluskov] but I’m going to have to be a big rebounder, shot blocker and rim protector and I’ll get some points here and there.”

It doesn’t take much for coaches to believe in a Blue Ridge big either, as Emory has received an early offer from ODU and has seen serious interest from Liberty, just a few of the schools that see the big time potential for the Pennsylvania native. As his time in Virginia continues to go on, he says he’s happy with the improvements he’s made so far and is eager to show what he can do.

“I’ve improved a lot as far as my aggression and physicality,” he said. “They’ve helped out in the post with a bunch of different moves and learning how to take the little things in my game and using it to my advantage.”

While Emory knows that his time is coming, the urge to get better hasn’t changed like his playing time will. He’s still in the gym everyday, working on his craft and trying to improve moving forward.

“I need to improve in my scoring, right now it’s on and off so I need to work on being more consistent. I just want to keep working and improving this summer so I can be the best piece for my team next year.”

Be sure to keep an eye out for Emory and the Barons, who should have a solid chance at repeating as VISAA D2 Champions this year.