INDIANAPOLIS (WDRB) – Noah Vonleh wants to be the next Kevin
Durant – and it is more than just wearing jersey No. 35 for his Mass Rivals AAU
basketball team. He will tell you that Durant is his favorite basketball
player, the guy he studies.
Vonleh is nearly 6 feet 9, about 220 pounds. He has the
largest hands that his AAU coach, Vin Pastore, has ever seen. And he is a
consensus Top 10 pick in the high school class of 2014.
Now that college coaches can send prospects an unlimited
string of text messages, Vonleh, 16, has stopped looking at them. Too many.
Wednesday night, at the adidas Invitational tournament,
Vonleh said the four schools that were the most relentless in their pursuit were
Louisville, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio State.
Vonleh said that UK has already offered him a scholarship
without actually offering a scholarship.
How?
Said Vonleh, "He (coach John Calipari) was like, ‘Oh, I'd
love to have you come up to Kentucky. We send a lot of players to the NBA every
year. My first six guys on my team they're always in the NBA Draft every year.'
That sounded really good."
Six guys drafted last month, four in the first round. Ten
first rounds picks in the last three years. No other program can sell that.
How does Louisville compete with that?
"Coach (Rick) Pitino and coach (Kevin) Keatts have been
talking to me," he said. "They talk
about how they love to get their guys into the gym and get them ready for the
next level.
"They say they like my game. They're going to keep watching
me a lot this summer. I'll see what happens.
I've got some high interest in them. I like Louisville as a team.
And Indiana?
"I've been talking to coach Kenny Johnson and coach Tom
Crean," he said. "They've been talking about getting me up for a visit pretty
soon. But I don't know when that will happen."
Vonleh said he expects to settle on a list of school that he
wants to consider by the fall.
