City of Basketball Love

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_rosenfeld)
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While he continues to chase his first Division I offer, Downingtown West big man Josh Warren can breathe easier as he enters the final few weeks of his AAU career.

Warren, a 6-foot-9 rising senior, who was previously without an offer to play at the next level, has picked up three Division II scholarship offers in the past week. West Chester became the first school to extend an offer, last Friday, and both Pace University and East Stroudsburg followed suit on Wednesday.

All three got a chance to see Warren at the CoBL College Exposure Camp last week, where he certainly impressed with his athleticism, ability to stretch the floor and his motor.

“It’s great, it’s just a relief if nothing else,” he said in a phone interview. “Now I know that no matter what happens the rest of July, I’ll be able to play somewhere, so I just can go out and have fun, stress-free.”

That’s certainly an enviable position to be in at this time, while many prospects are feeling the pressure of having to impress college coaches on the AAU circuit over the next month in pursuit of elusive first offers.

But Warren knows that there’s work left to be done; while he’s content with his Division II options, he views himself as a D-I player, and apparently the coaches that have offered him thus far definitely concur.

“They basically all said around the same thing, that they saw me at your camp and they thought that I was a Division I player,” Warren said. “Basically saying that they all reach for Division I players just to get the best that they can and they were really impressed with my versatility and things like that.”

He’ll certainly have an opportunity to pick up a Division I offer or two over the next few weeks, with several Ivy and Patriot League programs already having expressed their interest.

He mentioned Brown as the D-I program recruiting him the hardest, and they’ll be watching him with his WE R1 squad during the first NCAA live recruiting period at the Elevate Hoops Showdown at Philly U.

Like every high school player, Warren still sees playing at the highest level in college as his ultimate goal. However, he’s beginning to see the Division II route as a very appealing opportunity both to continue his basketball career and get the business education he’s seeking.

“I’m keeping all my options open,” he said. “Obviously I would prefer to play at a Division I school, but there’s plenty of respectable Division II programs that have great educations that I would be very happy there.”

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CoBL’s Josh Verlin contributed to this story