Nine schools hot after 5-star Zeller
Every week in April, Tyler Zeller heard the same pitch from college coaches. The conversations usually ended with a scholarship. Now the newly dubbed five-star center from Washington (Ind.) High School has nine schools on his short list.
The 6-foot-11, 215-pound center shined at all of the evaluation events he played at last month and heard from nearly every high-major school in the country.
Advertisement
"It's been pretty crazy. After Arkansas, I picked up nine offers in three days," Zeller said. "Actually, got tired of it and narrowed it down a little bit. Yeah, it's been crazy."
Michigan, Notre Dame, Purdue, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, Iowa State and Kansas make up his short list. All but Kansas has offered a scholarship. And he is perfectly happy with the potential college homes.
"Just from talking to coaches of these schools, I thought I could see myself playing for one of these programs," Zeller said. "I'm definitely going to stick with this group. If I decide to open it up, I'm know it is going to get harder and harder to decide. I like the group that I have."
Zeller said he has unofficially visited Indiana, Notre Dame, Iowa, Iowa State and Kansas. He recently returned home from his first visit to Kentucky.
"It went really well. I went down and talked to the coaches and saw all of their facilities. That was really nice," Zeller said of his time in Lexington.
"I'll take a more couple of visits around and probably by the beginning of the school year I should have a top five and then go from there. I'm looking at academics and how I'll get along with their players because they are the ones I'll be playing with. The coaches are very important, too."
Zeller said he does not have any upcoming unofficial visits. His summer is filled with AAU tournaments, including this weekend's May Classic in Bloomington, Ind., as well as the NBA Players Association camp in June
Coming into the spring, Zeller already held offers from a lot of the schools still on his list. He said he tred to focus in on improving and winning ball games.
"After the second or third game in Arkansas, I started getting there. I went out and just played and did what I had to do in order to win. You can't get too confident in what you do so you have to go out and play and then keep working," Zeller said.
"I thought I played pretty good. I had a lot of good players to compete with on my team and kind of pushed off of their play. I think some of it had to do with maturity and working out all the time and just trying to improve."