June 6, 2008

5:30 P.M. CST

When you are watching high school basketball team shootouts during the summer, you tend to ignore how many games a team actually wins or loses.  Instead, you pay closer attention to individual performances and which players in particular stand out over the course of the event.

A perfect example is 6'1 guard Seth Evans from Seneca High School in Seneca, IL.  Although Seneca only finished third in their pool at the Riverside-Brookfield Summer Shootout last weekend, Evans was outstanding when we watched him on the first day of action.  As a result, we believe that Evans is the player who enhanced his stock more than any other that we saw on either day at Riverside-Brookfield.

First of all, it is easy to tell within a minute of watching him that Evans is a coach's son (his father is the varsity boy's basketball coach at Seneca).  This is because Evans is the ultimate gym rat--he is ultra-competitive and never stops playing hard.  He also has leadership traits on the court that just seem to come naturally--things that don't have to be taught or reinforced.

One of the biggest reasons why Evans has shown vast improvement is because he continues to add upper body strength and as a result is extremely physical for his size and weight.  Skill-wise, he is a very smart ballhandler who takes care of the ball, makes good decisions and is capable of bringing out the best in his teammates.

In addition, Evans is also an outstanding shooter with legitimate 3-point range.  In fact, he drilled six trifectas when we watched him in a pool play contest at Riverside-Brookfield vs. Decatur Eisenhower.  What has made Evans an even better shooter than he was a year ago is that he now has the ability to create from one-on-one situations and get his own shot, an ability that he did possess a year ago.

Simply put, Evans has proven to us that he is capable of playing either the point or off-guard spots effectively and that he can be a quality combo guard at the next level.  As a result, we think that Evans is an absolute recruiting steal for Wisconsin-Green Bay head coach Tod Kowalczyk and the Phoenix, to whom he verbally committed last December.  

Continue to check in with Illinois Prep Bulls-eye for all of the latest as it pertains to recruiting and high school basketball in Illinois.