Despite the current lack of available scholarships for the 2017 class, Ohio State continues to hand out offers to rising high school juniors.
Last week, the notebook covered Westerville South's Kaleb Wesson and his recent offer – more on him later. The Buckeye staff followed that by reaching out beyond Ohio's borders:
OSU Offers Tillman
According to Ben Roberts of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Ohio State is now among the slew of Big Ten schools to offer Xavier Tillman (Grand Rapids, Michigan). He also has Iowa, Michigan State and Purdue on his list.
Tillman is a four-star power forward, according to 247Sports' composite rankings, and also received an offer from Kentucky. John Calipari is tough to compete with and will have more ammo after Karl-Anthony Towns likely goes No. 1 overall in tonight's NBA Draft.
"They told me flat out: 'If you come here, we can get you to the league, we’ll prepare you. We’ll work your butt off, so you can make it to the big time,'" Tillman said, via USA Today.
At this point, Tillman is considered a raw prospect but a high-level athlete.
"Tillman has a great nose for the ball and rebounds at a very high level on both ends," according to Future150's scouting report. "Tillman also uses his body to bang and get to the foul line during games."
Bucks Chase Walker
While Kentucky and several other high-major schools jumped in on Tillman around the same time as OSU, they're involved with Lonnie Walker's recruitment relatively early. The four-star guard also has offers from Indiana, UCLA and Villanova.
Walker, a Reading, Pennsylvania native, is considered an elite prospect by ESPN.
"He is an athletic wing playmaker that applies relentless pressure to the defense," according to ESPN's scouting report. "He attacks on the break where he is an excellent finisher."
This highlight reel is a bit outdated, but gives us a glimpse of Walker's skill set:
Wesson Visits
Following up on his recent offer, Kaleb Wesson decided to take a short trip to Ohio State's campus for an unofficial visit:
Kaleb Wesson (@Elite_Hooper99) is one of a few players in the '17 class with an offer from OSU. He will be on campus this morning.
— Westerville South BB (@SouthBasketball) June 23, 2015
Space in Ohio State's 2017 class is limited. Marc Loving would be the only departure, creating one open spot. At this point, it would be unlikely to see anyone from that class commit to the Buckeyes this early – especially considering the majority of rising high school juniors are just beginning the intense recruiting process. Some like it, some don't and, maybe, a local kid with an offer like Wesson wants to get it out of the way.
That being said, the Buckeyes probably have a more highly-touted prospect in mind if they have only one scholarship to fill.
Trent Jr. Blogs About His Recruitment
Gary Trent Jr.'s ascent up the recruiting rankings reflects his AAU and international performance over the last three months.
The leading scorer on the Nike EYBL circuit is now dealing with the consequences of his breakout summer.
"Before the summer started, I had offers from Minnesota, Texas Tech and Providence. Now I’ve got offers Duke, Kentucky, Ohio State, Florida State, Michigan State, Alabama, Kansas and a lot of other schools," Trent Jr. said, in his USA Today blog. "It’s crazy how things happened so fast."
Trent Jr. is, arguably, the most hyped prospect in his class and it comes at a point when coaches can now reach out to players in his class directly. Trent Jr. said he had around 150 messages from an assortment of college coaches after winning the FIBA Americas U16 championship in Argentina.
His Archer-like voicemail greeting probably served to annoy a few coaches.
"I always had a voicemail setup since I was younger that would trick people. I’d be like, 'Hello? Hello?' and the person calling me would always think I was there," he wrote. "I got the Oregon and Stanford coaches with that one!"
