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McCaskey's Gantz hearing from Big Ten program and more

06/11/2015, 3:00pm EDT
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Following up on a terrific junior year, J.P. McCaskey (Pa.)’s Kobe Gantz is pulling in some Division I offers--and there’s one high-major school in particular that’s tracking him.

“I’ve been getting a lot of contact from Wisconsin lately,” he said this past weekend at the Big Shots tournament in Chichester, where he and his Philly Pride team went on to win the 17U title on June 7. “Talked to coach Bo Ryan, the assistant (Greg Gard) talks to me on the phone a lot.”

Kamal Yard, who runs the Philly Pride AAU organization, said that Gantz had already been offered this spring by Rider and Loyola (Md.), with 20-plus other schools that had been in touch.

Gantz cited Temple, La Salle and Drexel as some of those other schools that had been recruiting him, but it seems like the Badgers who are in contact with him most often at this point.

“They took a liking to him,” Yard said, adding they’re trying to bring Gantz up to campus for a visit.

The second-team all-state selection averaged 17.8 points, six assists and five rebounds per game his junior year, but his stats on the Under Armour circuit haven’t been quite as stellar. In 10 games with Philly Pride, he’s only averaging 2.8 ppg and shooting 33.3 percent from the floor, though his team went 8-4 and secured a spot at the Under Armour finals in Atlanta next month.

“I’m in a slump,” he admitted. “I’ve got to get it back...I can’t hit anything.

“(I’ve got to) try to get an easy one, go to the free throw line, get fouled, make an easy layup,” he said. “Afterwards just get in the gym, keep shooting and try to get it back.”

Even though his shot hasn’t been falling of late, it’s clear to see why Gantz is an intriguing prospect. He’s got good size for the off-guard position, and certainly has high-major athleticism. His jumper has a fairly quick and consistent release, and while he wouldn’t likely be a primary ball-handler at the high-major level, he can handle it enough to serve alongside a talented point guard who can take some defensive pressure.

Though Wisconsin has become one of the nation’s top programs under Ryan, a Chester native who took the Badgers to the NCAA championship game this March, they’ve become known for taking somewhat-unheralded recruits and producing terrific basketball players.

One needs to look no further than the defending National Player of the Year, Frank Kaminsky, who arrived in Madison as a three-star recruit who wasn’t even in the top 200 in his class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings.

Clearly, it’s a big July ahead for the 6-foot-4, 170-pound guard, who took his game to another level during a PIAA Class AAAA tournament where he led the Red Tornado to the state semifinals before falling just short to eventual champion Roman Catholic.

In the second round, he dropped 32 points on Methacton, then scored a game-high 26 against a La Salle squad that made the 2014 state final before ending his season with another 26-point effort against a Cahillite lineup boasting no fewer than five future Division I players.

McCaskey head coach Steve Powell will return his starting backcourt from a year ago in Gantz and point guard Randolph Speller, the team’s second-leading scorer (11.7 ppg), but the only other five players on the roster who saw action in 30-plus games last year were all seniors.

So there is plenty work to be done this summer for Gantz to get the Red Tornado in shape for another run through a tough District 3 and PIAA Class AAAA field, and he has the whole team in the gym once a week for workouts.

“Other than me and Randolph, (we’re) going to have a new team,” Gantz said “I’m trying to get the younger guys ready, get them prepared. It’s a different atmosphere playing varsity, so just trying to get them ready, so we’re in there every Thursday.”

Roman is loaded yet again, with high-major targets Tony Carr and Lamar Stevens teaming up with Penn State commit Nazeer Bostick and a talented rising junior in D’Andre Vilmar. And a few other programs across the state will certainly be worthy candidates as well

But Gantz is confident that McCaskey will be ready.

“I’ve been telling every reporter ever since, that we feel like we could play with anybody,” he said. “The teams that we were playing, I didn’t feel like they were that much better than us, they could have been bigger, stronger physically, but talent-wise I feel like we could play with anybody.”


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