Transfers From Nebraska High Schools Roil Hoops Picture- For The Better? (OWH)

[seaofred92]

http://www.omaha.com/neprepzone/basketball/pospisil-transfers-from-nebraska-high-schools-roil-hoops-picture-for/article_76bee5d0-9a39-5157-81fd-c19ebe2ab9d9.html

 

Quote

Boy, has the landscape changed around here.

 

When high school basketball left off last March, Ed Chang was still at Papillion-La Vista, Malcolm Whitlow at Lincoln Northeastand Khuath Gatkuoth at Bellevue West.

All are on to greener pastures, or so they’ve been told.

 

Chang left after two All-Nebraska seasons for Garfield High in Seattle. Whitlow is at Carrollwood Day School in Tampa, Florida, after averaging 22.1 points as a sophomore. Gatkuoth is at Village Christian in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and has reclassified to the 2019 recruiting class.

 

Not all the moves affecting Nebraska hoops are outward-bound.

 

Preseason No. 1 Omaha Creighton Prep will have West Des Moines Dowling transfer Thomas Faber, a 6-foot-3 junior point guard, who becomes eligible for the second semester. Ditto for Jaylin Hunter, formerly of Lincoln High, whose father is Nebraska assistant Kenya Hunter.

 

I begrudge nothing to those who have gone and hope they flourish. But we won’t know for four or five years whether they made the right moves — whether they end a disturbing drought of Division I basketball success in Nebraska in an era of year-round hoops and outsiders telling kids that our high school basketball isn’t the path to the pros.

 

Take a look at the past 25 years in Nebraska, starting with 1993 when Pandora’s box opened after some missteps in the state’s then-pre-eminent summer team — the Nebraska Basketball Development Association statewide program — led to the current proliferation of AAU teams.

 

There have been no first-team all-conference picks from a Power Five-plus-One league — the last one was Iowa’s Andre Woolridge from Benson, who graduated from high school in 1992. And only one NBA draft pick, Creighton’s Justin Patton from Omaha North this year. But even before his broken foot, he was not going to be a league-ready player after only one college season.

 

Some record, isn’t it?