NY2LA: Suggs and Dain Speak
Grassroots Minnesota had a host of fans, schools, and media watching them Thursday in Milwaukee and after the games Jalen Suggs and Dain Dainja spoke with media about their recruitments.
A strong list of coaches and schools watched Jalen play on Thursday when he had 39 points combined in two games. The names included John Calipari of UK, Richard Pitino of Minnesota, and Fran McCaffery of Iowa plus coaches from Iowa State, Ohio State, Baylor, Oregon, and so many others.
After the games Suggs spoke with the media about the schools that are in contact and his interest in Minnesota.
“UCLA has been hitting me up a bit more the past couple weeks,” Jalen said. “(I) started hearing from North Carolina a lot since coaches have been calling. I’ve heard from Coach Scheyer (of Duke). I got texts from Coach K before games when we were down in Argentina (for USA U17 basketball).”
Jalen mentioned Iowa, Ohio State, Duke, North Carolina, and Kansas as schools he would like to take unofficial visits to. The Hawkeyes continue to be a program that Suggs has solid interest in.
“Yeah, I definitely want to go visit (Iowa) again,” Jalen said to Iowa 247 yesterday. “I want to go to one of their big-time football games. It’s always a good time down there. It’s always packed and there’s a lot of good energy. I’m hoping to get back down there this football season.”
As for the hometown Gophers?
“Pitino is a good coach. They have good facilities. I honestly think it could be a good year for the Gophers. I’m excited to get to some games and see how it goes. This is an important year for them.”
Suggs of course plays with fellow nationally ranked 2020 Dain Dainja of Grassroots Minnesota on the 17U team. Dainja’s first offer was from Iowa and that’s not something he is going to soon forget.
“Iowa’s been around for a long time, since last year,” Dain said yesterday at the NY2LA. “They love my game. They said they want me to come in and play just how I play in AAU — nothing different from that. They were the first Big Ten team to offer. That was big. They just came out and said, ‘We love your game.’ All the coaching staff.”
Another program putting in strong effort with Dain has been West Virginia and Head Coach Bob Huggins.
“West Virginia has had guys coming out of their program ready for the NBA Draft. Coach Huggins is a tough coach who runs a tough program.”
Dainja recently visited Northwestern, Marquette, and Illinois on unofficial trips. “I had some good visits. At Illinois I watched a practice, at Northwestern they showed me around a new campus which is good,” Dain said. “I spoke with several people at the school about the academics which is important to me. And at Marquette it was a nice campus and I know some guys there.”
Of course Dain spoke about Minnesota as well. “I’ve played several of the guys at Minnesota, they have a good program with good new players coming in.