City of Basketball Love

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)
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Prized five-star recruit Tyus Battle surprised quite a few people when he committed Michigan earlier on Monday.

The shooting guard from Edison, N.J. chose the Big 10 school over offers from Duke, UConn and Notre Dame, among plenty of others.

Battle is a consensus top-20 prospect, hailing from Gill St. Bernard's School and playing for Nike-backed Team Final on the AAU circuit. A 6-foot-6 guard, he’s a very talented scorer but equally good passer and defender, with a very high basketball IQ and a potential NBA future ahead of him.

On Nike's EYBL circuit, Battle--when he returns from an injury that kept him out of the April live periods--will play alongside numerous high-major Division I talents such as Penn State commit Nazeer Bostick and a pair of highly-touted players in Tony Carr and Lamar Stevens.

Battle’s commitment will surely making Wolverine fans feel better after highly-touted 2015 prospect Jaylen Brown chose Cal over Michigan just last week. 

Michigan’s 2014-15 campaign ended with a loss to eventual national championship runner-ups Wisconsin in the Big 10 semifinals. The team finished with a 16-16 record, missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2010, marking only the second time that a Beilein-coached Michigan team missed the tournament.

Battle is being praised as Beilein’s most significant recruit and the kind-of player that can help turn around a program that hasn’t quite been the same since making it to the NCAA championship in 2012.