NCAA Basketball: State of Nebraska turning into hotbed of high school talent

Future Classes

The 2021 and 2022 class is the best class of athletes the state has ever seen. The state has its first five-star recruit ever in the 2021 class and the players coming out of that class are highly coveted recruits who have had a slew of high major offers. There are also a large number of players who are just starting to see their recruitment pick up and who would have taken off this summer had everything not been canceled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic across the world.

Chucky Hepburn (Bellevue West) – Wisconsin

Chucky is arguably the best player in the state currently. While the recruiting rankings will tell you otherwise, Hepburn has a case. When he went head to head against Millard North who has the best players in the state his star shined brightest and he led his team to a victory. The Bellevue West guard has been at his best against the state’s best players.

The four-star recruit chose Wisconsin over a ton of other high major offers including Nebraska and Creighton. Hepburn will bring scoring and a calming presence to Wisconsin. The point guard is good enough to start from day one in Madison and is the anchor of the No. 2 ranked recruiting class in the country. Hepburn is the type of player who is going to leave Nebraska fans shaking their heads that they could not land him.

Hunter Sallis (Millard North) – Uncommitted

Hunter is the five star top 25 recruit that the whole country is taking notice of. His offer list is littered with Blue Bloods and everyone else. Outside of Hepburn, it is hard to make an argument for anyone else being even close to the best player in the state. The Millard North guard has offers from Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, Gonzaga, Louisville and UCLA.

Head coach Fred Hoiberg has been on Sallis since the day he took the job but many believe that ship has sailed due to the offers that Sallis has. He may be too good of a player to play at Nebraska. Sallis will be the next NBA player born in the state of Nebraska and it seems likely at least right now that he will only be in College for one season. He is the potentially the best player this state has ever produced and it may not be close.

Other players in the state are going to be hurt a great deal by the lack of AAU summer basketball. Those players are not able to improve their game and get the needed exposure they need this year for their recruitment to take off.

Saint Thomas, Jadin Johnson and Jasen Green are all players who play basketball with Murrell and Sallis at Millard North. Those players were all set to have their recruitment take off this summer on the AAU circuit. Instead, coaches are going to have to go by their high school film. Thomas arrived on the scene later than some and his offer list is growing but not near what it would have been had there been a summer program. If Thomas would have played well in the summer he would have snuck into the back end of the top 150 and been able to choose from a larger list of schools. He does have offers from Omaha and South Dakota. TCU, Vanderbilt, Colorado State and Iowa State have shown interest.

Green is an interesting prospect. He is a 2022 prospect who Fred Hoiberg offered when he took the Nebraska job. Green is a talented player who has the chance to star at a power school but with so much talent around him especially at Millard North, he has not gotten the looks he should have otherwise. The summer would have done him very well and would have seen his offer list grow. Husker fans should be happy to know they are currently his only offer. That may bode well for the Huskers in the future years trying to recruit Green.

Johnson does not yet have any offers but they would have come with a full summer live period evaluation.

Lucas Vogt is the one wild card prospect in the entire state of Nebraska in that he is so unknown because he plays for such a small school. He is a player with Mike Daum like potential. Vogt currently plays for Bancroft-Rosalie/Lyons-Decatur. The guard has helped lead his team to a 50+ game winning streak and two straight state titles. It’s not a question of if Vogt plays college basketball it’s a question of where. He played for the OSA Crusaders in AAU and was going to need that exposure to get noticed by the big schools. Vogt does have some offers but none of them are with a division one program. I do believe he will get some before his senior year is over and he will make everyone regret not offering him sooner.

Isaac Traudt is a 2022 commit who doesn’t seem to need the summer to get a ton of offers. Once he received his first offer from Drake they started to roll in. The Grand Island junior is one of the best players in the country and his play is going to solidify that as the year goes on. He has the best chance to be the next four- or five-star recruit from the state and many believe he may be a four-star at the least. He currently has offers from Drake, Wyoming, Nebraska, Northern Colorado, Omaha, Kansas State, and South Dakota. The Islander has also had a Rivals.com piece written on him which shows that the recruiting sites are starting to take notice of the junior.

One other player to keep an eye on is an incoming freshman and his name is Brennan Clemons Jr. His father was a basketball player at Nebraska and his son is already receiving praise he is going to be good and he should start to see his recruitment rise as he gets older. As mentioned the talent level in the state currently is no longer something to laugh at it is on par with many other states throughout the country. Nebraska hoops both in High School and in College is on the rise.