Recruiting Update: Eddie Turner (2018 Garfield HS)
There are whirlwind recruitments – and then there are WHIRLWIND recruitments. The latter certainly applies to Eddie Turner. The quick 6-foot-1 guard from Garfield High School put together a solid senior year but finished it all without a single scholarship offer. But after doing his thing on the AAU circuit for Washington Supreme, things have completely blown up for Turner and his recruitment – and he’s trying to take it all in.
So the basics are this. After helping lead Garfield to a state title, Turner had zero scholarship offers. The decision was made to head to prep school so Turner suited up for Washington Supreme on the UA circuit this spring and summer. He picked up his first scholarship offer from Massachusetts-Lowell in the spring. But after some eye-opening performances in July, the scholarship offers started to pour in.
Turner currently holds offers from Cincinnati, Minnesota, Loyola-Chicago, Tulsa, Wright State, Jacksonville State, and Massachusetts-Lowell and several other schools have shown strong interest. He’s already starting to take his official visits and when we talked to him he was actually in Chicago visiting Loyola.
“I love it here,” Turner said. “It’s about the team and the coaching and how they’ve built it so that they made it to the Final Four, and it’s not about them getting there so they don’t sell that.”
While Turner has enjoyed his time at Loyola, he’s determined to take more visits. He has visits coming up with both Cincinnati and Minnesota and others may also be forthcoming. He maintains he doesn’t have any leaders at this time. One of the wildcards to Turner’s recruitment is the fact that schools may want him immediately from the Class of 2018 or will take him for the Class of 2019 – something he’s also factoring into the decision.
“I’m just trying to see what the best fit is for me with my development,” Turner said. “As far as if it’s high level or low level, that doesn’t matter as much. It’s really the coaching – that’s the main thing.”
Yet another thing for him to consider is if he does take the year of prep school, where he goes will have to be decided – IMG Academy and St Thomas More are strong possibilities. In either case, if he does change to the Class of 2019 Turner noted that he would like to sign early.
In sum, Turner definitely has a lot going on and a lot of great options to look at. And to that end, it will be a very calculated and educated decision.
“Everyone has had three years to figure it out, but for me everything has come in the past two weeks,” Turner said. “So I’m not going to rush it.”