Three-Point Play: JJ Traynor, Dawson Garcia, JUCO matchup
One of the biggest upside guys in the class of 2020, four-star forward JJ Traynor is set to come off the board this week. What’s next for top-35 senior Dawson Garcia and a big-time junior college showdown is brewing. All in today’s edition of the Three-Point-Play.
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FOUR-STAR TRAYNOR READY TO ANNOUNCE DECISION
I haven’t seen four-star forward JJ Traynor as much as I’ve seen many of the other seniors we have ranked in the 2020 Rivals150, but I’ve seen enough to believe he’s one of the biggest “upside” guys in the class.
The 6-foot-8 product of Bardstown (Ky.) High will be making somebody happy this week when he announces his college decision. I traded messages with Traynor on Monday and he indicated that a decision is on and could come as soon as Wednesday, but no exact time or method of how to release his decision has been decided.
Long and versatile with touch, length and athleticism, Traynor burst onto the scene during the late summer playing with Dion Lee’s Louisville Legends. He had schools from all over the country in to see him this fall but from where I sit it looks like Cincinnati and Louisville are the biggest competitors for his service. Kentucky has been involved as well but given that the Wildcats have not yet offered, it’s hard to see him ending up there.
John Brannen has been very active in his attempts to lure Traynor to Cincy and he could make an immediate impact. But, I’ve currently got my FutureCast pick in for Louisville. Chris Mack and the Cards are close to home, there is history with Traynor (his father Jason Osborne played there) and they’ve turned things up quite a bit in the past few weeks.
The Cardinals have already landed one of the top junior college players in the country – Jayden Scrubb, who I discuss more below – and four-star wing D’Andre Davis. The addition of Traynor would move their class into the national top 15 and after landing 2019’s No. 11 class, Mack and his staff will have quickly replenished the talent in Louisville.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DAWSON GARCIA
Considering that Dawson Garcia already chopped some schools off of his list and narrowed things down to Indiana, Marquette, Memphis and Minnesota earlier than expected, there was some thought that the top-35 senior could be really close to a decision.
He saw Indiana officially over the weekend, meaning the skilled four man from Minnesota has seen all of his finalists. However, he’s still going to take one more official visit to Marquette (weekend of Nov. 8). While he won’t be waiting until the spring like initially planned, it does look as though his decision will run right up until at least the beginning of the early signing period in two weeks.
Marquette has gotten a lot of buzz during the fall and may actually be in the best position to handle a miss. They’ve got four-star forwards Justin Lewis and Osasare Ighodaro committed so adding Garcia would be a luxury. For Richard Pitino and Minnesota, the pressure keeps mounting to keep in-state stars home and Garcia has been on campus a ton, so a miss would really hurt. Indiana has a strong class going with commitments from three Rivals150 wings and the early word is that Garcia’s time in Bloomington was helpful to Archie Miller and the Hoosiers’ chances. As for Memphis, the Tigers have yet to scratch in 2020 after landing 2019’s top recruiting class so they need to get on the board here sooner or later.
I give a slight edge to Marquette. I’d like to hear more about last weekend’s visit to Indiana before logging an official prediction and ruling anybody out. But, from what I’ve been hearing most recently, it does appear that those two may be opening up some distance on Memphis and Minnesota.
BIG-TIME JUCO MATCHUP THIS WEEKEND
Believe it or not, the first big-time college game I’m going to see this year will be a junior college game.
On Saturday, I’ll be making my way to the campus of Indian Hills in Ottumwa (Iowa) to see the preseason No. 6 ranked team in NJCAA D1 host John Logan College who ranks No. 4.
Not only is it going to be a great matchup between two deep teams, the game features Kansas-bound Tyon Grant-Foster of Indian Hills and Louisville commit Jayden Scrubb of John Logan. The two athletic wings are in the argument for top JC player in the country and this game will surely play big in the debate.
I’ve seen both play – Grant-Foster at a jamboree earlier this month and Scrubb during the summer at USA Basketball – pretty recently and I’m really looking forward to getting a better look at the 6-foot-6 sophomores in a competitive environment. I’m expecting coaches from each staff to be on hand, plus both Grant-Foster and Scrubb are getting NBA attention so there should be some NBA people in the building as well.