NCAA Basketball Recruiting: Analyzing JUCO prospect Saquan Singleton’s top-5

Highly-touted NCAA Basketball JUCO prospect Saquan Singleton deciding between three Mid-West and two Pacific Coast programs.

Junior College transfer Saquan Singleton recently revealed his top-5 school list and a decision date via twitter. Singleton will announce his NCAA Basketball selection on April 6 and is choosing between Alabama, Kansas State, TCU, New Mexico, and Pacific.

Singleton, who is ranked No. 22 in JUCO.com’s 2020 prospect rankings, showed some improvement in his second year at Hutchinson CC.  But the 6-6 point guard still has plenty to work on if he on making an impact at the next level. Don’t get me wrong Singleton is very talented.

The Bronx (NY) native possesses elite athleticism and is long as well as versatile. Singleton is an excellent shooter, although he does not possess 3-point range and excels at getting to the rim where he is an outstanding finisher. He is also a good distributor and rebounder though he struggles with turnovers as well as foul trouble.

Singleton produced a triple-double and five double-doubles this past season for Hutchinson. Singleton averaged 11.2 points along with 7.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists along with 3.1 turnovers. He also shot 54.3% from the field. However, he shot just 53.8% from the free-throw line.

The former Manhattan commit told Hank South of BamaOnLine that TCU, Alabama, and Pacific are neck-and-neck in the race for his services. Thus, we got to assume that New Mexico and Kansas State are essentially out of the running. Here is a look at the three favorites.

Alabama: Singleton is a former teammate of forward James Rojas, and he appears to have a great relationship with coach Nate Oats.  “We speak almost every other day,” Singleton told South. “He’s a great coach. He’s always checking in on his players, always wants the best. Alabama is definitely on my top radar right now.”

Even though the Tide does not currently have a scholarship available for 2020 after receiving a verbal commitment from Josh Primo, Bama is still forging ahead with adding players and are also reportedly pursuing Yale grad transfer big man Jordan Bruner and junior college guard Keon Ellis.

TCU: The Horned Frogs also don’t currently have any scholarships available, and while they use a four-guard lineup, TCU has plenty of depth returning in the backcourt and will have the services of transfer Charles O’Bannon Jr. — after the first semester –as well as incoming freshman Mike Miles.

Pacific: The Tigers are coming off their best season under fifth-year coach Damon Stoudamire as they posted a 23-10 record, which included finishing tied for third in the WCC at 11-5. Pacific still has to replace four scholarship players, but they do return two of their top-four players in guard Justin Moore along with center Amari McCray. While Pierre Crockrell, who registered a double-double against Portland in mid-February, Stoudamire could use to upgrade the point guard position.

Projection: I really believe that Singleton would love to end up at Bama. I think the best place for him is at Pacific. So, I’m going Pacific at No. 1, followed by Alabama and then TCU.