Recruiting Report: Aidan Vanderloo (2019)
As his high school career continues to wear on, it seems the best is yet to come for Sioux City East rising-junior Aidan Vanderloo.
Iowa’s 8th-ranked 2019, the 6-foot guard picked up his first offer this past summer, from Nebraska D2 Wayne State. And he’ll be a focal point on our 2nd-ranked team in the state in the recently released “Way Too Early Top 10: Class 4A.”
With a strong showing this season, more offers could come pouring in next summer for the heady sharpshooter.
“Recruiting has been going pretty good. I try not to worry about it too much. I just try to play the game that I love and keep improving,” said Vanderloo.
“Most of the time the colleges go through my uncle and head basketball coach, Ras (Vanderloo). He said he’s been in contact with college coaches from all levels, from NAIA to D2 to D1.”
“Some of the college are Augustana, Wayne State, Southwest Minnesota State, Northwest Missouri State. He also talked to USD, SDSU, Iowa and UNI,” said Vanderloo.
The aforementioned Wayne State offer came in late this summer, they also extended an offer to Vanderloo’s Black Raiders teammate, Van Rees.
“I like Wayne State. It’s close to home, and I’ve been hearing they’re on the build up, they have a good program coming,” said Vanderloo. “They just called me and said they were interested and they liked the way I played, and they thought I deserved an offer.”
He added: “I was very appreciative, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that.”
Already one of the state’s best shooters, and with a very high basketball IQ, Vanderloo mentioned what it was he continued to hone this spring and summer with Martin Brothers 16U.
“Really, I’ve been working on a lot of strength and conditioning type stuff. Just strengthening my body,” he said. “We just got a trainer in from Arizona, and we’ve just been working with him a lot. He’s really good.”
His 16U summer was stymied a bit by a nagging knee injury. But with still two high school seasons left and one big 17U season in between, there’s plenty of time to bounce back.
“This spring and summer was OK, I sat out some of it with my knee. Early on, my knee was still kind of bothering me, so I was just kind of getting it back and getting in motion again, and game speed. After a while, I felt OK,” said Vanderloo.
“I wish I would have shot it a little better this summer, and performed a little better — it happens.”
Now though, Vanderloo can look forward to what should be an exciting junior season with one of the state’s best teams. Four of five starters return from last season’s state-qualifying Sioux City East squad.
“My role this year will change drastically. We lost Jailen (Billings) who was a really good player, good scorer, good leader. I’m going to have to pick up some assists and scoring. But really, we just have to go and play team basketball, and our brand of basketball, and we could have a really good year,” said Vanderloo.
“I think we could have something good going here. If we stay humble, keep our head down and keep working, I think we could have a really good team.”