Three-Point Play: Precious Achiuwa, trends, prospects to watch

RANKINGS: 2019 Rivals150 | 2019 Team rankings | 2019 Position rankings

2020 Rivals150 | 2020 Position rankings

Top 75 of 2021

MORE: Duke lands 2019 four-star Cassius Stanley

In today’s edition of the Three-Point-Play, national basketball analyst Eric Bossi discusses the shifting of 2019 attention to Precious Achiuwa. He also discusses a few thoughts on the recruiting process and takes a look at three currently unranked players who could see their stock take off during this weekend’s live evaluation period.

Now that Cole Anthony has gotten his decision out of the way, the most interesting recruiting battle left in the class of 2019 is that of Precious Achiuwa. Ranked No. 16 overall, the 6-foot-9 four man isn’t the highest-ranked player left on the board, that honor goes to No. 6 Jaden McDaniels. But unlike McDaniels, who appears to be nowhere near a decision, I do feel that Achiuwa is closing in on one.

Having already visited Kansas and North Carolina officially, Achiuwa began an official visit to Memphis on Monday. There’s always the chance he could elect to take another visit or two as others like Connecticut and Georgia are involved and surely Mike Anderson has at least reached out since taking the St. John’s job last week. But, I have a hard time seeing anybody knocking out the Heels, Jayhawks or Tigers.

As for Memphis, I’m starting to get the feel that things are trending in their direction. Keep in mind that Achiuwa was on campus unofficially during the fall and that he’s chose to return for an official visit after seeing what Penny Hardaway has put together in 2019 is a good sign. This time last week, I would have given Kansas the slight advantage, but much of that had to do with the thought that Memphis would likely land Trendon Watford. With Will Wade back at LSU, I’m not sure Memphis happens for Watford anymore and because of that, they’re turning up the heat on Achiuwa and I’m thinking it could pay off here sooner than later.

I don’t want to go all “get off my lawn” or “man yells at sky” here, but there are two unrelated recruiting process things that have been bugging me lately. One is the act of programs offering players after big showings at events they couldn’t attend and two is the notion that for those elite players considering reclassifying from 2020 to 2019, another run on the the grassroots circuit appears to be taking precedence over getting on campus as soon as possible.

To the first point, it is something that I notice each year when I’m out covering non-live period events. As I and others report on players who have had big outings via tweets or online reports, they often seem to start generating offers. Sometimes the events are broadcast online, so I suppose coaches could be watching and making the decision there. Many other times, the events aren’t being broadcast. What compounds things is that it seems like once one school offers, others make copycat offers.

Look, I won’t tell a coach how to run his program. But, if offers are really being made because of what was read – or even worse because another school offered – you are setting yourself up for disaster. If I were a recruit, a recruit’s coach or a recruit’s parent, the first thing I would want to know is why on Earth do you want to offer me after an event where you couldn’t see me play?

Now the reclassification issue. I get there are many layers to this. Academics have to be in order, the scholarship has to be there and all of that. But, I also know that most kids who are looking into enrolling early have a pretty good idea of whether they will move up to 2019 or stay in 2020. If the plan is to move to 2019, I want to know why grassroots basketball is taking precedent over getting onto campus as soon as possible.

Today’s top players have a lot of demands on their time and they don’t get to be “normal” kids. So, if the reasoning on waiting is to be a “normal” kid, then you aren’t accomplishing that by traveling from camp to camp. If you still need summer school grades, I get that too. But, with all things being equal, I’d like to see more emphasis placed on getting on campus as soon as possible. Sure, travel ball is fun. Getting written about and ranked is cool. But you can’t convince me that any of those things could be more beneficial to the long-term success of a player than getting on campus, getting college coaching, getting in a college weight room or bonding with your college teammates could be.

If it’s really about being a normal kid, then you wouldn’t be considering skipping your senior year of high school anyway. The idea of reclassifying is to face better competition and hopefully get to the pros a year early. Why not do everything in your power to maximize that?

This weekend, April’s one live evaluation period for travel team events takes place. I will remain home in Kansas City to cover Under Armour’s Association, Corey Evans will be in Ft. Worth for the Adidas Gauntlet event and Dan McDonald will be in the Atlanta area for Nike’s EYBL. With that in mind, I wanted to throw out one currently unranked 2020 prospect from each circuit to watch as a potential breakout player this weekend.

At the Adidas event, I’ll go with 6-foot-6 wing Dillon Jones of the Upward Stars. He’s a unique, big-bodied and versatile wing who gets a lot done despite not necessarily being a conventional wing. Home state South Carolina has already offered.

Here in Kansas City I’m looking forward to getting my eyes on Rongie Gordon. To be fair, he already burst onto the radar a bit this spring, but things around the forward could reach a frenzy by the end of the weekend. Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Alabama and Georgia Tech have already offered. So has Auburn and the Tigers could be making an early move with Gordon.

Finally, in Atlanta I’m going to predict Jeremiah Oden of Brad Beal Elite breaks out if he does what he’s capable of. A smooth and skilled 6-foot-7 combo forward, Oden needs to get stronger but he has huge upside. He’s originally class of 2019 with plans to go to prep school and he won’t turn 18 until the winter of 2020. A good performance in front of the right set of eyeballs could see him net the type of scholarship offer that makes him scrap his plans for prep school.