(2025) - SF Jaziah Harper

[Hornsby 2,088]

Indeed. Delusion is a powerful drug.

He is surrounded by yes men. Why do you think he kept all the same assistants from last years debacle. He needs people who will not disagree with him imo.

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[WayneFleekHoosier 48,474]

If he commits, this thread will go down in history. Lol.


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[RaceToTheTop 26,085]

Don't know much about him but do know the Don Bosco school in Hammond.  They've done a decent job at getting kids that weren't getting much in terms of offers out of high school to programs.  Basically it's a place where high school graduates can go, mostly concentrate on basketball for a year (their classes are online) and play against some better competition and get noticed.  They did take a kid who went to the high school I taught at who was getting marginal D2/D3 offers and ended up getting a scholarship to Evansville (coaching change there before he ever got on campus and he ended up playing at Delaware, so still D1). 

That said, they don't typically get kids to P5 levels.  I found a couple they had in recent years, but they were cup of coffee guys (Tracy Ramsey who played at Maryland as a scholarship player but only appeared in five games before transferring) and Patrick Suemnick who was in West Virginia's rotation last year and is in Oklahoma State's rotation this year).  I believe the two most successful players to come through Don Bosco Hammond are Nick Boyd and Kobe Knox.  Boyd is a senior at San Diego State, played three years at FAU under Dusty May (in their rotation all three years, averaged 9+ points his junior year and scored 12 points in the final four loss to San Diego State as a sophomore).  Currently averaging 13.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.5 assists at San Diego State and put up 23 against Gonzaga.  Knox is at South Florida where he is a junior averaging in double figures.

[RaceToTheTop 26,085]

Looking at their current roster, the two players I see there who are local (Camden Webster and Jaelyn Johnson) both graduated high school in the spring of 2024 and academics were not an issue.  Looking at others I see that were local, they also were high school graduates that went there.  So I can't speak for all players there, but it seems like a way for kids to take more college prep classes while concentrating mainly on basketball.  I would say the classes are secondary to their purpose -- but of the players that I know that went there from the area, academics was not the issue to begin with.  Kid I know very well took was a straight A student that I had in calculus and physics.

Found this in their Twitter bio:

Bosco Institute is a high school / post grad program designed to help young men continue their development&enhance their opportunity to play college basketball.

[RaceToTheTop 26,085]

Further investigation --

Found his Twitter page.  He transferred to Don Bosco for the 23-24 season for his senior season, so it looks like he was not a post grad transfer.  First D1 offer was in January of 2024 from Incarnate Word (please no Tim Priller jokes, LOL).  Received an offer from the University of Detroit in March of 2024 and then Central Michigan in April of 2024.  Don't know the case, but I am guessing he wanted to hold out for better offers and decided to come back to Bosco as a post grad for another year to see what he could get.  Looks like he visited Wisconsin in November of this year but does not look like he has an offer at this point.

[Demo 20,306]

13 hours ago, RaceToTheTop said:

Don't know much about him but do know the Don Bosco school in Hammond.  They've done a decent job at getting kids that weren't getting much in terms of offers out of high school to programs.  Basically it's a place where high school graduates can go, mostly concentrate on basketball for a year (their classes are online) and play against some better competition and get noticed.  They did take a kid who went to the high school I taught at who was getting marginal D2/D3 offers and ended up getting a scholarship to Evansville (coaching change there before he ever got on campus and he ended up playing at Delaware, so still D1). 

That said, they don't typically get kids to P5 levels.  I found a couple they had in recent years, but they were cup of coffee guys (Tracy Ramsey who played at Maryland as a scholarship player but only appeared in five games before transferring) and Patrick Suemnick who was in West Virginia's rotation last year and is in Oklahoma State's rotation this year).  I believe the two most successful players to come through Don Bosco Hammond are Nick Boyd and Kobe Knox.  Boyd is a senior at San Diego State, played three years at FAU under Dusty May (in their rotation all three years, averaged 9+ points his junior year and scored 12 points in the final four loss to San Diego State as a sophomore).  Currently averaging 13.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.5 assists at San Diego State and put up 23 against Gonzaga.  Knox is at South Florida where he is a junior averaging in double figures.

So it is an actual brick and mortar school? Good to know because in the couple of games I could find on YouTube they were playing in what looked like maybe a Rec Center. 
Appreciate you digging into this. Can’t lie, I am always a sucker for mystery kids.

[Class of '66 Old Fart 84,970]

SIAP but I think I read on the school's website that they play their games at the Hammond Civic Center so it likely does look more like a Rec Center.

[Demo 20,306]

40 minutes ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

SIAP but I think I read on the school's website that they play their games at the Hammond Civic Center so it likely does look more like a Rec Center.

That would explain it. Looked at their schedule at 1 point and it looks like they don’t travel. Chicago area and Lake County exclusively, at least the schools I knew. They do play Lalu. There’s got to be a stream game somewhere coming up. Can’t lie, pretty curious here.

[Hovadipo 56,471]

45 minutes ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

SIAP but I think I read on the school's website that they play their games at the Hammond Civic Center so it likely does look more like a Rec Center.

 

6 minutes ago, Demo said:

That would explain it. Looked at their schedule at 1 point and it looks like they don’t travel. Chicago area and Lake County exclusively, at least the schools I knew. They do play Lalu. There’s got to be a stream game somewhere coming up. Can’t lie, pretty curious here.

Am I seeing right that these guys are playing NAIA/D3/JUCO schools…?

[Demo 20,306]

29 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

 

Am I seeing right that these guys are playing NAIA/D3/JUCO schools…?

You’re looking at something more useful than I am. I was just going through the schedule on their website and it only has something like 15 games. And I was looking for game times by reverse engineering and looking at the schedules of the teams on theirs and the 1st 4 I looked at didn’t show them at all. If I didn’t know they were legit I would swear that they weren’t.

[Hovadipo 56,471]

21 minutes ago, Demo said:

You’re looking at something more useful than I am. I was just going through the schedule on their website and it only has something like 15 games. And I was looking for game times by reverse engineering and looking at the schedules of the teams on theirs and the 1st 4 I looked at didn’t show them at all. If I didn’t know they were legit I would swear that they weren’t.

Scroll down on that page to the Blue Squad’s schedule. College of Dupage, Olivet Nazarene, Aurora University and others are on that schedule. That top one appears to be a B-team or maybe something else. 

[Demo 20,306]

18 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

Scroll down on that page to the Blue Squad’s schedule. College of Dupage, Olivet Nazarene, Aurora University and others are on that schedule. That top one appears to be a B-team or maybe something else. 

Thank you. Scrolling, wow, what a good idea. Oh the winner there is Indiana Elite Prep. I remember reading about that somewhere and I think that deal is some kind of scam. But if it is legit it’s supposedly like northwest of Indy somewhere. Zionsville or something like that.

[RaceToTheTop 26,085]

23 hours ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

SIAP but I think I read on the school's website that they play their games at the Hammond Civic Center so it likely does look more like a Rec Center.

The Hammond Civic Center is a very old venue but definitely not a rec center type  of venue.  Very large seating capacity that has hosted WWE events.  Seating capacity of 4,500.  From videos I saw it did look like they played some games in Whiting’s gym which is much smaller.