Recruiting Update: Spencer Hoffman (2018/Prep)
After his senior season at Churchill High School in 2016-17, Spencer Hoffman had the opportunity to sign and move on to the college level. But the skilled 6-foot-10 post felt he wasn’t quite ready to do so and decided on the prep school route, deciding to play this past winter with Link Year Prep in Branson, Missouri. He’s back home in Eugene from the experience and is pondering over his options where he’ll play college ball in the fall.
Looking back, Hoffman was appreciative of his year at Link Year Prep. “My goal there was to obviously get more exposure, but I also wanted to develop my game,” Hoffman said. “I’ve always been one of the biggest guys in the state so I wanted to develop more of a perimeter game. I wanted for it to be more of a weapon and I thought I was able to do that.”
Part of the exposure portion of Hoffman’s goal was to get interest from schools in the Midwest and Southwest, but his experience was that those schools wanted to recruit players that were, according to him, “a little more local”. Hoffman came to accept this, so after he came home in April he started up conversations with the schools that had previously recruited him at Churchill. In the meantime, he also suited up for Hoop Salem 17U in the spring and a couple of schools have emerged as legitimate possibilities.
“Right now my biggest options are Colorado Christian and Central Washington and I’ll be making visits to both of them,” Hoffman said. “I’m also waiting to see if anything else happens but I’m going to visit them and hopefully make a decision by Memorial Day weekend.”
Hoffman’s initial goal was a D-I program but he likes the options he currently has at the Division II level. “I think they are decent spots for me to make an impact and for my career,” Hoffman said. “At this point I’m trying to find a place that wants me to be there as much as I want to be there. That makes it so much better as a whole.”
Entering the mix in Hoffman’s decision is academics as he is looking at majoring in Journalism in college. He’s looking forward to seeing what Colorado Christian and Central Washington have to offer. “I’m going to take these two visits and I’ll know a lot more after that,” he said.