Recruiting Report: Luke Appel (2018)
Simply put: Luke Appel has been a beast this season.
The 6-foot-7 small forward is scoring better than almost anyone in the state, and is rebounding at a high clip, too.
That 25.3 points and 11.3 rebounds per game average has college coaches paying attention.
“My coach has been talking to the UNI coaches a lot, and they’re going to come watch me this year. That’d probably be more of a walk-on opportunity, which I might think about,” said Appel.
“Kirkwood, Southwestern Community College and MCC have been in touch. And Upper Iowa came to one of my games; I didn’t talk to their coach, but they said they wanted to get in contact with me soon.”
Local JuCo Marshalltown Community College (MCC) says they have a spot for him if he wants, and Appel mentioned what it is about the JuCo route that intrigues him.
“I’m thinking one of the community colleges after high school for maybe a year, maybe two, we’ll see how I develop,” he said.
“I feel like I’ve developed a lot in the past year, and my body is just now starting to catch up. And if I can go to community college, I can get in better shape and get bigger, and maybe play my more natural position, like a three.”
Iowa’s 62nd-ranked 2018, Appel is due for a bump in the next installment. He says it was a strong offseason that has helped lead to his monster start to his senior season.
“Spring and summer went really well. I played with the Dynasty and had the opportunity to play with the Barnstormers one weekend,” said Appel.
“I was just working to score better inside and drive to the hoop and finish. And I haven’t been shooting too well, but that’ll come around, and that will really open up everything for me.”
And with his improvement has come team improvement. The Bobcats are 2-4, and are projecting to improve greatly from their 3-19 season from last winter.
“We’re a lot better than we were last year, all of our games have been close. But not everyone is used to winning yet, so we haven’t been able to finish games as well as we should,” said Appel.
“My team really relies on me to get a lot of rebounds because we’re not very big. And with my points, we’re running an offense where we’re just looking for me a lot more this year, and I’ve been getting to the line a lot.”
And opponents could have a lot more to worry about soon.
“My jump-shot will get going, I’ve been shooting good in practice,” said Appel. “There’s no reason my shot shouldn’t start dropping in games soon.”