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Hoop Group Elite 2 Notebook: Day 2 AM (July 20)

07/20/2017, 9:15pm EDT
By Isabella Sanchez & Josh Verlin

CoBL Staff (@hooplove215)
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READING, Pa. -- The Hoop Group’s second Elite Camp in as many weeks drew over 700 players to Albright College, including dozens and dozens from the CoBL coverage zone.

Here’s a notebook from the morning action, featuring several local products and a few from slightly further away:

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Jake Forrester (above) says he'll cut down his list to seven schools after the PSA Cardinals/NY Jayhawks combine this weekend. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Forrester looking at cutting list next week

As you watch Jake Forrester’s bouncing dyed-blonde curls and wide grin, you can tell he’s enjoying himself as he pushes the ball down the court.

Forrester had an exciting season playing for the Westtown School (Pa.), which is coming off of two consecutive PAISAA titles. He’s been continuing his hard work into the summer with the PSA Cardinals, a Nike EYBL squad based out out of the Bronx.

As of now, he has 26 schools who have offered him, including the likes of Seton Hall, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Indiana, Xavier, Virginia Tech and Penn State, but there are many more.

Though he hasn’t made his final list yet, Forrester said he’s planning on taking official visits official visits to Georgia Tech and Indiana in the fall, though no dates have been finalized. The impressive 6-9 forward hopes to make his final decision toward the beginning of his senior season.

The Moose big man saw two of his teammates go through similar processes last year. Mohamed Bamba, a powerful 7-foot center, waited until the end of his senior season to commit to the Texas Longhorns. His other teammate, Brandon Randolph, knew he would attend Arizona before he started the 2016-2017 season.

“They gave me some advice just like take your time, make sure the coach really wants you, make sure it’s genuine,” he said.

The Harrisburg native is looking for three things as he chooses his next home.

“A coaching staff that wants to improve players, make us better,” Forrester said. “A good group of guys to play around with and a place where I can have an impact my freshman year.”

Forrester says he will be narrowing down his list of schools to seven at some point shortly after the PSA Cardinals/NY Jayhawks combine taking place at Westtown on Sunday. He says the combine will be the last chance for coaches who haven’t offered yet to “see if they want to join in” before he starts to hone in on his finalists.

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Aidan Igiehon (above) was one of the most physically impressive prospects at Hoop Group this week. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Irish-born big man Igiehon soaking it all in

Ask Lawrence Woodmere (N.Y.) big man Aidan Igiehon for his list of offers, and his eyes go slightly wide.

“You want all of them?” was his response.

That gives an idea of just what it’s like for the 6-foot-10 big man, a native of Dublin, Ireland, who picked up basketball seriously thanks to a growth spurt at age 13 and has since become one of the top 50 recruits in the rising junior class.

The schools he did name: Oklahoma, Arizona, Oregon, Virginia, Villanova, Seton Hall, Xaiver, Ohio State.

“It’s all over the country, my phone’s always blowing up,” he said. “At first it was exciting and now I’m getting used to the feeling. Obviously, I’m blessed to have (the attention), I’m appreciative. I’m not annoyed by it or anything.”

Igiehon’s basketball education has taken him leaps and bounds since he arrived in the States three years back.

Now that his recruitment has reached this level of intensity ever since colleges could first start directly contacting rising juniors on June 15, Igiehon knows the next step of his education is about to start. He’s got to begin learning about the programs recruiting him.

“I’m just looking to go visit more schools, I visited Saint Louis and St. John’s so far, that’s the real only two I have visited...really just visit a lot so I know what I’m looking for,” he said. “I don’t want to say whatever fits me the best, because I don’t know what fits me the best. During the school year I want to watch a lot of games. I want to go out west and visit UCLA and Arizona and Oregon, all of that. The process has been exciting.”

Igiehon also mentioned that Villanova had been attending his games since he was a freshman, and the school’s Main Line campus is “definitely” on his list to see.

A powerful 6-10, 225-pound forward, Igiehon is a mobile face-up big man who can put the ball on the floor with confidence against opposing forwards and passes well out of double-teams; he’s got a nice-looking jumper, missing several 3-point attempts in his late morning game but hitting a few from closer in while finishing around the rim.”

“I already run the floor well and I'm athletic, so now just expanding my game,” he said, “trying to get my footwork right and hit the mid range jumper, which during this camp I’ve been doing well.”

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Quick Hits

-- That Tyler Washington was collecting more rebounds than points in his late-morning game wasn’t by accident. The Hun School (N.J.) rising senior was crashing the glass with abandon, taking advantage of his strong frame and high-level athleticism to steal a few rebounds away from opposing bigs, including several on the offensive end: “That’s one of my staples as a player,” he said. “I’m a great rebounder as a guard, that’s one thing I’m known for, one thing I do really well.”

Washington picked up his first offer earlier in the spring, from Manhattan; Lafayette, Holy Cross, Vermont and San Francisco have also reached out with varying levels of interest over the last few weeks.  “They just want to see me play hard and see me do little things, make open shots and be a good defender, so that’s the things I try to do out here,” he said.

-- Very quickly, Khalif Battle is emerging from the shadow of being the younger brother of Syracuse sophomore Tyus Battle, as the 6-4 guard’s stock is hitting its own peak at the right time. After not playing his sophomore year at Trenton Catholic due to a groin injury, Battle’s had a strong offseason with Team Final’s 16Us, and now the colleges are coming around. In the last few weeks, he’s been offered by Syracuse, Washington, Miami (Fl.) and most recently UConn, which joined in the fray on Wednesday night. “It feels good because I've been waiting for this, and I've put a lot of work in, so it’s good that the hard work is paying off,” he said.

Though his brother is a star in the making on the Orange, the younger Battle brother -- who announced yesterday he'll be going to Gill St. Bernard for his junior year -- said that doesn’t give Syracuse any extra advantage in terms of his recruitment. But it’s not about trying to out-do his brother or anything of that nature; it’s just about waiting and seeing what opportunity is best.

“It’s never a competition between me and my brother,” he said. “Because I want him to be as successful as he can possibly be, and he wants the same for me. No matter what happens in life, we are always going to be proud for each other and what we accomplish.”

-- The slim-but-impressive Seth Pinkney, who started for  has offers coming in from Saint Joseph’s, Towson, Central Florida, La Salle, Temple and VCU. Pinkney has yet to take an official visit with any of his suitors --  but wants a school that will “show the most love” and push him to improve. This summer the 6-10 forward, primarily used as a shot-blocker and rebounding specialist who runs the floor well, wants to work on his ball-handling before playing his senior season Archbishop Wood; he displayed a nice 15-foot jumper at Albright on Thursday.

-- Elijah Kiah-El graduated from Martin Luther King high school and will be completing a postgraduate year at Coastal Academy (N.J). He’s adjusting well to the team after playing with them at a team camp earlier in the summer. Coming into the camp, Kiah-El had offers from Coppin State and Hampton University and has a visit with the Pirates coming up; he picked up his third D-I offer, from Eastern Kentucky, on Thursday. He has also been hearing from a pair of A-10 schools, St. Joe’s and UMass.

-- A physical 6-7, 230-pound forward, Jared Garcia caught the attention of coaches with some big-time rejections in his morning game, going up and meeting opposing drivers at the pinnacle and sending the ball forcefully back in the other direction. On the other end, the St. Thomas More rising junior didn’t do anything as eye-opening, but he displayed strong catch-and-finish abilities, including a nice reverse finish with his right hand. A native of Houston who came up to the Connecticut prep school last year, Garcia claimed offers from Rider, Binghamton and Iona.

-- Quite a few Division III programs are already hot on the heels of Middlesex (N.J.) rising senior forward Jacob Robel, and it was clear why in the first set of the day. The 6-6, 170-pound wing forward was a tough finisher inside, including a beautiful spin move into a layup, and then also stepped out to knock down a corner 3-pointer; he ended up with 19 points, three rebounds and three steals in his half of action. So far, Robel said, he’s being courted by a group of small-college programs led by York, Union, Moravian, Susquehanna, Utica and TCNJ.


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