–> The No. 1 2024 recruit in MN Daniel Freitag committed to Wisconsin, the Big Ten’s defending POY Zach Edey announced his return to CBB and Gophers football begin their annual Summer Splash recruiting event this weekend.
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In-state recruiting (Daniel Freitag)
The No. 1 high school basketball player in Minnesota Daniel Freitag committed to Wisconsin on Friday, chosing the Badgers over finalist offers from Minnesota, Baylor, Virginia and Notre Dame. 247sports ranks Freitag as the No. 69 recruit in the country. The Bloomington Jefferson product joins Nolan Winter, Jack Robison, Tyler Wahl and Brad Davison on a long list of MN –> WI pipeline recruits. Fans of Gophers basketball have plenty to say whenever a top local product commits elsewhere, especially when it’s Wisconsin. I often ask myself, how important is recruiting in-state?
There are only 13 open scholarships in men’s Division I college basketball, so you cannot recruit every player in the state. Since Ben Johnson took over as head coach, his biggest misses are Freitag, Nolan Winter and Taison Chatman. But I would say in a bigger sense that he chose Braeden Carrington over Chatman, Pharrel Payne over Winter and Isaac Asuma over Freitag. It would be naive to not admit Johnson certainly would’ve made room for any three of those players if they wanted to commit, but teams of just underclassmen rarely succeed in college basketball. Johnson and his staff could’ve wanted to stay flexible and keep scholarships open for veterans amidst the transfer portal era.
So while any Gophers fans certainly has the right to frustrated when Wisconsin consistently makes the NCAA Tournament with a team full of MN prep stars, I believe Ben Johnson is doing just fine when it comes to recruiting within the state of Minnesota. With landing Battle and Garcia in the transfer portal on top of Payne, Ola-Joseph, Carrington and Asuma, Johnson has already proven to have a better in-state recruiting record than Pitino. It is now time to turn his recruiting into wins.
Zach Edey returns to Purdue
College basketball’s reigning National Player of the Year Zach Edey announced that he will be returning to Purdue for another season. As a projected second-round NBA Draft pick at best, so the decision made sense. Joining Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe from last season, it marks the first time in nearly 40 years the sports’ NPOY decided to wait on the NBA and return in consecutive seasons. I think this is another thing that shows that we’re in a new era of college sports, it would really be hard to imagine Tshiebwe or Edey deciding to return without the current NIL rules. Being able to retain stars like Thsiebw and Edey and even Blake Corum in football is something that we likely wouldn’t have seen even 10 years ago. NIL was long overdue and it will only help college sports in the long term.
Summer Splash
One of the Gophers football program’s biggest recruiting weekends of the year will begin this weekend. Most major college football programs have a recruiting event in late spring/early summer for incoming senior recruits and the Gophers is called “Summer Splash”. There will be dozens of recruits on campus this week, some already committed and some potential options, you will see 100s of cool pictures of them on Twitter.
This is another great thing that proves P.J. Fleck has the Gophers football program going in the right direction. Cool pictures on social media can go a long way in making your program look appealing to potential recruits. Coach Fleck and his staff are about the right things and it is beginning to pay off, as this year’s class currently ranks 13th-best according to 274sports. Be sure to look out for plenty of recruiting news as things will be busy.