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By LARRY VAUGHT
larry@amnews.com
When Indianapolis Arsenal Tech coach Jason Delaney conducted his team meetings after last season ended, Trey Lyles had a simple message for him.
“His personality is one of the most impressive things about him,” said Delaney. “He said, ‘Coach, I have scholarship offers. I want to make sure my teammates get offers, too. You don’t hear that from many kids. He is worried about his teammates having the same opportunity as him. That says a lot about his character.”
The 6-10 Lyles is one of the top players in the 2014 recruiting class, and will play in the Marshall County Hoopfest Dec. 6-7 in Benton. He originally committed to Indiana in September of 2010 when he was only beginning his freshman year of high school. However, about a year ago he de-committed from Indiana and now he has Kentucky, Louisville, Florida and Butler as his final four schools.
“He is getting ready to start doing his visits now. He’s in no rush to do it,” Delaney said. “He wants us to win. That’s his big thing. Every time I talk to him, it’s about winning a state championship. Our school district has had players like Rod Woodson, George McGinnis and other greats, but he has a chance to be our first McDonald’s All-American. The school opened 100 years ago, and he could be just our second Mr. Basketball. But he focuses on the season, not recruiting. He has narrowed his schools to four, so we’ll just go from there.”
Delaney did not see a lot of Lyles during the summer. Lyles, a Canadian, averaged 20.3 points and 10 rebounds per game in the FIBA Under 19 World Championships in Prague where Canada lost to Spain in the fifth place game.
He also help his team win the 2013 adidas Nations in Long Beach, Calif., when he had 10 points in the title game against an all-star cast. The second-place team included UK recruiting targets Jahlil Okafor and Stanley Johnson, who had a game-high 17 points.
“He was in the Czech Republic a long time and was the second leading scorer in the FIBA Under 19 Championships,” Delaney said. “He is 17, playing against guys 19 years old. He was playing with Marcus Smart (of Oklahoma State), who could have been the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. That says a lot about him. (Kansas signee) Andrew Wiggins didn’t play for Canada, so that put more focus on Trey and he was able to produce. Then I saw him on ESPN (in the adidas Nations) and he ran the floor and played great again and once again was very unselfish.
“Trey is a quiet kid. He is very loyal. Once you have that relationship with him, he will do anything you ask him to do. We have to get on him about shooting more. He doubled his assists last year and led our team in assists, rebounds, scoring and blocked shots. He led in every category and yet he sacrificed to make sure his teammates stay involved.”
Delaney is looking forward to having Lyles and his teammates showcase their talent at Marshall County.
“We are limited here about who we can play. We can only go 300 miles to play, so that restricts our schedule,” Delaney said. “I’ve heard a lot about the Hoopfest. A lot of college coaches rave about it. Look at the lineup they had last year (Wiggins, Andrew and Aaron Harrison, Dominique Hawkins, Quentin Snider, Cliff Alexander). We want to challenge ourselves. We are a traditional high school, but we want our kids to have the best experiences they can have.”
Arsenal Tech will play Louisville Ballard, last year’s state runnerup and potential top team in Kentucky again, on Dec. 6. Ballard is led by Snider, a guard with a bevvy of big-time offers since de-committing from Louisville recently.
“They are a very good team. We know Snider is outstanding,” Delaney said. “The next night we play Huntington Prep. I would be shocked if they are not the nation’s No. 1 team. We are a veteran team led by seniors, but how many opportunities are kids going to get to play someone like Huntington Prep. I cannot think of an Indiana team that has played someone of that caliber. It’s a huge challenge. They have at least five major college guys.”
One is 6-5 guard JaQuan Lyle, a Louisville commit who transferred from Evansville to Huntington this summer. He’s regarded as one of the top 15 recruits in the 2014 class. Huntington Prep’s roster also includes Josh Perkins, a point guard from Colorado; Angel Delgado, a power forward from the Dominican Republic; and Jalen Lindsay, a forward from Nashville who has committed to Providence. Junior five-star 2015 wing Montaque Gill-Caesar is also on the team.
“We know JaQuan well. But we want to play the best,” Delaney said. “We are very confident in what we have. These kids built this program. They had won 17 games in three years when I got here. Trey’s sophomore year, we won 16 games in our first year. We were 21-5 last year, the most wins the school has had since 1974. That’s a testament to these seniors. Prep schools call Trey every year to come play for them, but he has shown his loyalty to the school and his teammates. In this day and age, most kids would have left. But not Trey.”
Delaney thinks he has four other “under the radar” Division I prospects. They are 6-3 guard Jeremy Tyler, 6-6 forward Rashaun Richardson and 6-5 guard Mikey Jones, all seniors, along with 5-10 sophomore point guard C.J. Walker.
“C.J. started last year and shot 55 percent from the 3-point line. He is a tough, tough kid,” Delaney said. “He’s all you want in a point guard. He is getting a lot of interest already from schools.”
Arsenal Tech will be back in Kentucky Jan. 10-11 to play in the first McCracken County Hoopfest and will face another top team in Villa Angela-St. Joseph of Cleveland, last year’s Division IV state champion. Villa Angela-St. Joseph has produced college stars like Clark Kellogg, Tony Fisher and Stanley Kimbrough in recent years.
It has another future star in five-star junior forward Carlton Bragg, a 6-8 forward rated No. 12 in the 2015 recruiting class by Rivals.com. He has a scholarship offers from Ohio State, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State and Indiana, but has made it known he would like offers from Kentucky, Louisville, Duke and North Carolina.
“Again, we want to play the best and we know how good they’ll be, too,” Delaney said.
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