By Eric Bossi
247Sports
For years, the month of July has been the most important month in high school basketball. For the longest time it was the best opportunity for college coaches to identify and chase targets and for players to play themselves on the radar. Because of the amount of time spent in the gym, recruiting situations and players for whom not much is known about tend to start to clear up. A lot can be learned by simply watching which guys the big dogs are locking in on.
Over the past few years – throwing out the COVID year – the additions of recruiting periods in April and June along with a de-emphasizing of July recruiting has made the month a little less important. But make no mistake, the month is still an important one. Here's seven storylines that we'll be watching closely for the rest of the month.
Who will reclassify or choose an alternative route?
Reclassification isn't just a thing that happens here and there anymore. Each summer we've seen more and more prospects elect to enroll a year early and while the results have been mixed at best, the trend isn't going anywhere. Now, players have more opportunities than ever to chart their destinies with the G League's Ignite program, Overtime Elite and overseas options and we know that change is inevitable.
Just look at the class of 2021 for a more recent example. At this time last year, Emoni Bates, Jalen Duren and Shaedon Sharpe were all members of the 2022 class. Now instead of prepping for their freshmen seasons Duren and Sharpe have already been drafted in the NBA Lottery and Bates has enrolled at Memphis and transferred to Eastern Michigan. Amen Thompson and Ausar Thompson were among the high-profile players to sign with OTE. When July of 2021 started, none of that was set in stone. The bottom line is that history tells us that we are going to see guys end up on college campuses or pursuing a pro options a year earlier than expected and that where we see smoke, we should expect some fire.
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How serious are schools like Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio State and Tennessee about Bronny James? Eric Bossi is hoping to find out in July.
Photo: Louis Lopez
