Recruiting Report: Malik Willingham (2019)
Waseca. The Jays always seem to have “a guy”. A guy that the opposition always has to worry about and a guy that gets his team wins. Malik Willingham is that guy, and he’s got two years to go.
Willingham was the Waseca leading scorer last year helping the Bluejays to a 25-4 record. Malik then joined Minnesota Select’s top 16u club and was an all state player.
“My 16u year season went great,” Willingham said. “Had a lot of great teammates making me better every day. I have also learned a lot from it and it has help me with becoming a better teammate.
“The biggest take away from the last four months will probably be the ability to get better by playing the best players out there.”
With two seasons to go Malik is thinking about being more than a devastating shooter (both with feet set and on the move).
“I want to improve my quickness so I can be faster on defense and to be able to drive to the rim consistently and finish.”
Waseca was very good but Jake Guse and Kaleb Nelson graduated so the Jays have to find a group of guys to make up for their production.
“We lost a good group of seniors and so we’ll be bringing up people who never played a varsity game yet including three freshmen who should bring a lot to the table,” Malik said.
“Our goals right now is to work hard, get used to playing with each other, and hopefully do some big things and go to state since we came up short last year.”
College coaches watched Select win games which from April through July often had Jack Thompson and Malik Willingham putting together some big games.
“I heard from Southwest Minnesota State a lot, Concordia-St. Paul, Winona State, St Cloud State, and Augustana,” Malik said. “I’ve also heard from University of Sioux Falls and Columbia.”
Waseca will need Malik to be a leader this year and do even more than the leading scorer he was a year ago.
“My goals for my junior season ire to be a better leader, to improve my game a lot, to get stronger and quicker and then get the whole team involved the game.”