When it comes to homegrown talent, the state of Indiana appears to have its mojo back a bit in the class of 2025.
Recruiting publication On3 updated its class of 2025 basketball prospect rankings, and five in-state products landed in the national top-150 for high school juniors.
Here they are, based on the industry average of the main ranking services:
- Jalen Haralson, 6-foot-7 guard, 5-star, No. 8 (La Lumiere, originally from Fishers H.S.)
- Trent Sisley, 6-foot-7 forward, 4-star, No. 52 (Heritage Hills H.S.)
- Braylon Mullins, 6-foot-5 guard, 4-star, No. 95 (Greenfield Central H.S.)
- Azavier Robinson, 6-foot-1 guard, 3-star, No. 114 (Lawrence North H.S.)
- Dezmon Briscoe, 6-foot-8 forward, 3-star, No. 148 (Crispus Attucks H.S.)
(We don’t include players from national prep powerhouse La Lumiere unless the player is originally from Indiana).
Indiana is involved with all five of those players. This IU staff has shown that when there’s local talent, they’ll pursue. And now that they’ve rebuilt the reputation of the program, they are legit contenders. They’ve offered everyone except Briscoe to this point, including Haralson and Sisley before they played their first high school game.
The class looks like an improvement over recent years when it comes to talent produced within Indiana’s borders. There have been years when there were even more in-state top-150 prospects, but the three prior classes have all been lacking, at least in that regard.
There were only two players in top-150 from Indiana in the class of 2024. And that’s only because Flory Bidunga came to Kokomo H.S. as an exchange student from Democratic Republic of Congo in 2021. Purdue bound Kanon Catchings is an Indiana product and top-30 recruit who transferred to Overtime Elite. Northwestern bound K.J. Windham ranks No. 200, and Purdue bound Jack Benter ranks No. 247.
The class of 2023 had three top-150 players from Indiana — Xavier Booker (Michigan State), Myles Colvin (Purdue) and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn (Illinois).
And the 2022 class had two in the top-150 — Jalen Washington (North Carolina), Fletcher Loyer (Purdue) and Kamari Lands (Arizona State).
The 2018 to 2021 classes all had at least five top-150 players who hailed from Indiana.
Of course rankings must be taken with a grain of salt. There have been some 2022-24 players ranked outside the top-150 from Indiana who have turned out to be productive high major college basketball players. Recently that includes Braden Smith (Purdue), Connor Essegian (Wisconsin), and Tony Perkins (Iowa). Indiana’s C.J. Gunn also projects to have a productive high major career.
For complete coverage of IU basketball recruiting, GO HERE.
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