Cincinnati was able to lock down a commitment from Louisiana guard Jacob Evans the other day. Evans is a 6’5, 200 pound guard from St Michael’s high school in Baton Rouge. Evans becomes the third 2015 commit in what has become a pretty good class, joining Justin Jenifer and Tre Scott. 247 ranks the Bearcats class 29th as of today. It should be noted quickly that as good as that looks, it’s the third ranked class in the American. Memphis, 14, and UConn, 20, both have top 20 classes as of today.
Evans is a top 100 recruit. That’s the type of thing you say about someone who is ranked in the top 100, but very low. 247 has him at 142, but Rivals has him at 96. ESPN and Rivals gave him 4 stars, 247 gave him 3 stars. Jacob had a big time summer. He played extremely well at the Pangos All American camp and at the NBPA top 100 camp. Those camps were behind his rise to a 3 star recruit in August to a 4 star recruit today in October.
Star ratings do matter, but what interests me more are the other offers. Evans was thought of to be South Carolina commit. The Game Cocks went after him hard, but ultimately he didn’t find Frank Martin’s school up to his liking. It sounds like things were down to only the former Bob Huggins assistants.
Jacob Evans recently visited Baylor, as well as Auburn and Tulane. His last visit was to Cincinnati about a month ago. That went much better. Those 5 schools seemed to go after him the most, other offers include Houston, Louisiana Tech and UTEP among others. LSU made a very late push at the Baton Rouge native, but the school with the top recruit of 2015 couldn’t lock him down.
Evans’ high school coach Drew Hart threw out some great quotes to NOLA.com, some of which I’ll share with you, the reader. I’m nice.
About Evans deciding now to commit:
“For a 17-year-old kid, dealing with all of this, he really did a great job handling it all. He thought he would wait until later in the process to commit, but then more recently, he decided he wanted to be able to focus on his senior year and enjoy every moment of that because he knows he only gets to experience it once.”
About Cincinnati:
“He feels comfortable there, and he’s excited,” Hart said. “Ever since coach (Mick) Cronin and coach (Larry) Davis first showed interest after Las Vegas, you could tell both Jacob and his mom felt so comfortable with them. I kind of knew that was the way they were leaning, but I stayed out of it, because that was going to be their decision, so they needed to be able to own it.
“They were very impressed with South Carolina, too. And the thing about Jacob is he’s a system guy that’s going to work hard and play hard for whoever he plays for.”
On how Evans matured:
“The first things is just his physical growth and maturation,” Hart said. “Three years ago, he was this 6-foot, skinny kid, and now he’s legitimately 6-foot-5, 6-foot-6, 210 (pounds). I told a lot of coaches I’m going to hate to see what he looks like in two years when he’s the real age a high school senior should be, because he’s gonna look like a beast, and I’m gonna wish he was still on my team.
“His ball-handling has continued to progress. He’s always been able to use his body and get to the rim. The one thing he lacked was that knockdown 3-point shooting, and that’s what changed this summer.”
On the 3 ball:
“I hadn’t had much of a chance to see him in AAU yet, and coaches were calling me saying, ‘We love this kid out here shooting the 3,'” Hart joked. “I had to say, ‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same kid?’ Then we come back from the summer, and I had the kids play some pick-up, and he’s out here draining 3’s.
“If he can shoot the ball as well as he has been, it’s gonna be hard to stop him. You’re probably going to need more than one guy to do it.”
It sounds like the Bearcats got in at just the right time to lock up this 2015 gem.
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