More WPIAL basketball players heading to prep school for opportunities

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, January 14, 2018 | 6:13 PM

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Better competition leads to better scholarships.

That is the rallying cry for a wave of local high school basketball players who jettisoned school pride, left close friends and teammates and traveled hundreds of miles from home for a shot at a free ticket to a Division I college.

Prep school is the thing to do for some of the up-and-coming talents in Westmoreland County hoops, but results are showing for them.

The prep school route used to be a post-graduate path to college ball, where fifth-year seniors could hone their skills before going to the next level. But some players are bolting for prep schools much earlier, including Brandon Stone and Asa Klimchock, who left their area high schools and transferred to prep schools.

Stone, a versatile, 6-foot-11 guard-forward, left Southmoreland after last season for The Christ School in Arden, N.C. He already had Division I interest, and might have received offers from those schools, but he thought the competition level Southmoreland would face, and the diminished experience the team had coming back, could detract from his recruiting.

That might sound selfish, but it is a move that could help Stone better prepare for the rigors of top-level college basketball. He endorses prep school, but only because he felt it fit his personal situation.

“It's not for everybody,” said Stone, who averaged 25.3 points and 11.4 rebounds last season at Southmoreland. “But if you're really serious about playing a sport, whether it's football or basketball, I recommend it because it's going to help you tremendously academically, as well as athletically. You're playing better competition. You're playing with top guys from all over the country.

“Coaches come to see them, and they're like, ‘Who is this kid?' ”

Stone is a starter and has had a few double-doubles this season for Christ School.

Klimchock left Greensburg Central Catholic after his sophomore season and transferred to The Kiski School in Saltsburg. He “reclassified,” meaning he is repeating his sophomore year and will attend Kiski for three years. It is similar to a redshirt in college.

He has been a key guard so far, averaging about 15 points.

“It's definitely better competition to get you ready for the next level,” Klimchock said. “Most prep-school kids all have their minds set on playing college basketball, and it helps to play with and against kids who take the game seriously. It's a different environment then it was at GCC.

“I want to fully reach my potential, and I think this is a good start to help me get to that point.”

Other WPIAL players who left recently for prep schools include Tre Mitchell and Ja'Mier Fletcher. Mitchell, a 6-foot-9 sophomore, left Elizabeth Forward for Woodstock Academy (Conn.), while the 6-7 Fletcher transferred from Steel Valley to Faith Love Christian Academy in Washington

Past WPIAL players who took the prep route include Moon grad Jarrod Simmons, who went to Cushing Academy (Mass.) for three years before finishing high school back at Moon. The 6-9 forward who led Moon to a WPIAL title last season, signed with Penn of the Ivy League.

After his junior season at North Allegheny, Anthony Dallier transferred to Northfield Mount Hermon (Mass.) for two years after reclassifying. He played at Yale.

Stone talked about reclassifying but said he is undecided about that now, with so many scholarship offers and the chance to join a college team next year.

He has 15 Division I offers, including Pitt, Penn State, Houston, South Carolina and Kansas State.

Is he reclassifies, he will be a senior next year.

Mitchell has offers from Pitt, Minnesota, Connecticut, Tennessee, Georgia Tech and others.

Klimchock is adjusting to a more regimented life, something another former GCC and Kiski School standout can relate to.

Jesse Reed played two years at Saltsburg before transferring to GCC, where he finished his high school career. With the recruiting process somewhat stagnant — he had some low Division I and Division II offers — Reed decided to go to Kiski School for a year.

American University of the Patriot League showed up and made him an offer.

“You have to make sacrifices,” Reed said. “It's a tough decision and a big adjustment. It's all regimented out at a prep school. Maturity-wise, though, it makes you grow up quick.”

Reed said there is a life-change academically, too. While prep school is not the military, it is built on structure.

Reed credits the extra year for his readiness to play at American and his overall development as a person and player. And it came a bonus: He went on to play professionally in Luxembourg.

“I ended up being the best man in my roommate (Jeff Boyle's) wedding,” said Reed, an assistant coach at Saint Vincent College. “Who knows if that would have happened otherwise.”

Prep school comes with no guarantees, but Reed and Julian Batts, another former local standout, are exceptions of players who upped their stock by taking that path.

After graduating from Jeannette, Batts followed Reed's blueprint and is making a name for himself at Division I Long Island-Brooklyn, averaging 8 points a game as a starter.

Like Reed, Batts believed he could play at a higher level and wanted better offers, so he tested the prep-school waters when he spent a year at St. Thomas More in Oakdale, Conn. Batts, Jeannette's second all-time leading scorer behind Terrelle Pryor said extra practice time has to trump any prebuilt thinking a scholarship will come easy.

“The most noticeable thing was the way my work ethic changed and how it's carried into college,” Batts said. “I went to the gym as much as I could whenever I had free time. I always was a hard worker but didn't always have the gym resources and realized how much harder I had to work when I got to prep school, going against the highly-ranked guys I played with.”

While all of the aforementioned players were AAU standouts, they believed playing the same caliber of players in the winter months would keep them sharper, yearround.

And Division I coaches don't always attend high school games, but they flood AAU tournaments and prep schools.

“People don't realize how crazy Christ School games are,” Stone said. “The place is packed and going crazy, and there are like 20 D-1 coaches watching.”

Prep school basketball is off-putting to some high school coaches, many of whom see it as gimmicky and unnecessary.

Others don't care about it, so they don't talk about it, let alone romanticize it. Prep schools can offer their own scholarships and can cost several thousand dollars to attend. They are known to recruit current high school players, some via AAU programs.

The high school coaches who loathe preps, though, don't want to go on the record and take to task every prep-school coach in the country.

While players can continue to get recruited by just playing high school and AAU basketball — the old, if you're good, they'll find you, school of thought — prep school is just another way — not the only way.

“Every kid's situation is different,” said Nate Perry, a Hempfield graduate who runs the ITPS Sports AAU program. “But having a year or two away from home, kids are getting more of an opportunity to have extended gym and weight room time and truly perfect their craft while also getting to focus on their school work.

Perry coaches Stone and Mitchell in AAU. He sees the benefits of better competition.

“At any given prep school, there could be several Division 1 basketball players on the court every day,” Perry said, “and by being able to compete with that high competition level for 10-12 months could be extremely beneficial versus just AAU exposure.”

Bill Beckner Jr. is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bbeckner@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BillBeckner.

Tags: Greensburg C.C., Hempfield Area, Jeannette, Southmoreland