Woodson’s Recruiting

[Bigred3588]

I think we’re all pretty happy with Woodson’s recruiting to this point, but there’s one thing I’ve noticed that has me really excited; and it’s something I think we’ve been lacking for a while. The kids coming in aren’t just talented, they expect to win and know what it takes.

JHS & Reneau - Starters on a National championship winning team who had to earn their spots against D1 talent and played top competition week in and week out.

Jakai Newton -   Led his team to a 24-6 record and #2 ranking in the state. Lost by 3 in the final 4 to the eventual state champs. Has had to compete for PT with multiple D1 players on his team throughout HS.

Kaleb Banks - Led his team in scoring, rebounds, and steals. Led his team to a 21-9 record and #9 ranking in their class. Lost by 1  in the state sweet 16.

Gabe Cupps - Led team to two consecutive state title games (first one as a soph) in Ohio’s most difficult conference (or playing the most difficult schedule, can’t remember which). Lost 1 game in 2 years. IIRC, we’ve had another PG that led his team to the title game as a soph and junior. He ended up being a pretty good player for us…

CJ Gunn - Didn’t have quite the same kind of team success as the others, but led LN to a respectable 17-7 record in a very good conference. Broke out individually averaging 24 and 6 and showed continuous improvement throughout HS.

This isn’t meant to be a knock on our current players, but I just haven’t seen this combination of talent and pedigree on the same Indiana team in quite some time.