Prospect Spotlight: Easton Darling (2020)
A top-10 prospect in Iowa’s 2020 class, bouncy and skilled 6-foot guard Easton Darling is certainly a prospect to keep an eye on this winter.
He was sensational last season as a freshman for an upstart Winterset team. And this season, he’s looking to up his production dramatically.
“I’ve mostly been working on my all-around game as a point guard. I’ve worked a lot on acceleration and quickness, getting to the rim. I’ve also worked a lot on my jumping ability, just getting up and dunking,” said Darling.
“I’ve also been working on seeing the whole floor and distributing to my teammates, as well as scoring.”
A combo-guard in the past, Darling is working to establish himself as more of a true point guard, and spent his summer doing just that with one of Iowa’s best grassroots units, Martin Brothers 15U.
“I’m probably going to be marketed as a point guard with Martin Brothers, and I’ll play point guard a lot of the time with Winterset, me and Casey Kleemeier,” said Darling.
“Coming into the summer, I was confident and played pretty well all summer long. My offseason in general has been pretty good with training and working out, I feel like a more overall player bow.”
Now, after averaging 13.8 points per game as a freshman with the Huskies, Darling comes into his sophomore season with very high expectations — for him and his team.
“A big focal point for our team is changing up things on defense, last year we were pretty awful and we’re looking to defend well and be aggressive this season on that end of the floor,” said Darling.
“I just want to help our team win as many games as possible, and maybe get to the state tournament. First we want to win conference, and then keep going from there.”
As for his recruitment, Darling is seeing some initial D1 and D2 interest, that should continue to evolve over the next 12 months.
“I’ve got some interest from some coaches, some D1s and D2s have been interested, and I’ve gotten a couple letters from some schools,” said Darling. “It’s been Augustana, UNI and Central Missouri so far.”