Victor “V.J.” Beachem, a 6-foot-7 rising junior forward, is one of the Midwest’s top players in the Class of 2013. He played for the Eric Gordon All Stars this summer and spring and drew the attention of Minnesota head coach Vince Taylor. Beachem has attracted offers from several Midwest teams, including Minnesota and is one of their biggest recruiting targets in the Class of 2013. GopherHole.com caught up with Beachem to learn the latest on his recruitment.
Beachem, who played last season at Ft. Wayne (Ind.) Harding has already earned scholarship offers from Purdue (his mother’s alma mater), Butler, Notre Dame and Minnesota. Beachem has a tie to Minnesota as his mother’s cousin was former Golden Gopher Nate Tubbs.
Beachem comes from a basketball family. His father, Victor Beachem played at Fort Wayne Elmhurst and then at Cisco (TX) College and Cincinnati Tech (which is known now as Cincinnati State).
GopherHole.com caught up with Beachem to learn the latest on his son’s recruitment.
GH: What are you hearing from Minnesota?
VB: I really like those guys. They can see me being a “Tayshaun Prince” type of player with Coach Smith.
GH: What type of things have you been working on to improve yourself as a player?
VB: Definitely, hitting the glass harder and playing better defense
GH: You had a really good opening game in Las Vegas against the Wisconsin Playground Warriors?
VB: I had a pretty good game. I had around 21 points and we won by one point. It was a good game. It was real tough. A dog fight for us.
GH: You played in a very tough pool in Las Vegas, facing the Wisconsin Playground Warriors with Bronson Koenig, Ohio Basketball Club, who had won the 15-anmd-under division in the Best of The Summer last July and New Heights, which made to the adidas Invitational finals this year and finished 3-0. You had to be proud of your team against such tough competition?
VB: We beat New Heights down in Indianapolis the first time, so the second time, we knew that they were going to come at us hard and we were able to win that game. We beat Wisconsin and they were tough. They run their stuff really good and we were able to gut out a win against Ohio Basketball Club.
GH: How about your high school team. Did you lose a lot from last year?
VB: Actually, my high school closed, so now I am going to a new one, Haven High school. We should have a pretty solid team this year. We are going to have two kids who are around 6-8 and 6-9 and I will play the wing like last year. We should be pretty good and I still have my same coach, so it’s all good.
GH: Will you have a lot of the same teammates or will it be a lot of new kids, too?
VB: A lot of new kids. There is only two or three guys that followed coach with me
GH: Is that going to be tough or have you been playing much this summer to get to know each other?
VB: We’ve been doing stuff. I think that it is going to work out pretty good? It is actually better now that we are playing with new guys and different guys, even though we had chemistry with the other guys. Working with these new guys is a new experience, like college, you are going to be playing with new players that you never played with before.
GH: Have you a chance to check out any college campuses?
VB: I went back up to Michigan State and I went to Michigan for the first time. I haven’t made it up to Minnesota yet and I have been to Butler twice since January.
GH: I know that your mom’s cousin, Nate Tubbs, played at Minnesota. Has he ever talked to you about that?
VB: He still lives up there. He talked to me a little bit about them. It’s a Gopher connection. I guess that you could call it that. It is pretty good
GH: When was the last time you’ve been up to Minnesota to visit him?
VB: Actually, I’ve never visited him. He has always come down to Fort Wayne and talked to me and the family, but I definitely want to get up there soon.
GH: What other schools are you hearing from?
VB: Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Georgetown, Stanford, Purdue, Ohio State, Xavier, Cincinnati, Tennessee and Florida.