Recruiting Report: Zaine Leedom (2018)
With his 17U offseason behind him, East Marshall and Iowa Intensity small forward Zaine Leedom is left as one of Iowa’s best 2018’s without a scholarship offer.
He could be seen disrupting defenses with his length, and skiing for jams all spring and summer with Intensity, and has some continued Division II and small college interest.
“I’ve been in contact with a couple D2s, Wayne State and Winona State have been in touch. I talk to Clarke University in Dubuque quite a bit, their coach has called me a few times. And Briar Cliff has been calling me quite a bit,” said Leedom, a 6’4 wing.
“I’m just kind of letting whatever happens, happen. If people want to talk to me that’s awesome.And hopefully I’ll get some visits set up.”
He added: “I’m not too worried about it right now.”
Already one of the state’s best and most versatile threats, Leedom mentioned to PHIA what he’s improved upon this offseason.
“What I think I improved on most was being able to penetrate a lot better, and that opened up my teammates more,” said Leedom. “And I was working on my outside shot as well.”
“I think I’ve developed fully into a small forward and wing-type player. My outside shot has gotten a lot better, and I don’t hesitate as much.”
As a focal point of Iowa Intensity’s uber-successful 2018 unit, Leedom helped make them one of the best teams in that grade level in Iowa.
“It was a fun team to play with. We’ve been together for a really long time, like six or seven years. So we we’re really comfortable with each other, and we knew where to get each other the ball,” said Leedom, who discussed the team’s underdog persona.
“Every game we went into against teams like that (Martin Brothers, Barnstormers, etc.) we knew that people didn’t think we’d win. But at the same time we just played every game the same.”
Last season with East Marshall, Leedom was good after becoming eligible after the winter break. This season he and his teammates have high, high goals for themselves.
“It’s really exciting, we definitely didn’t lose much (from last season’s team,” said Leedom. “We had our senior meeting at the end of the school year last year, our coach said he doesn’t expect this team to lose another game; whether that’s a scrimmage or regular season, so that’s our mentality going into next season.”