I am very involved with high school basketball and club team basketball in Idaho. I get to work with and get to know a lot of kids and coaches through club and AAU tournaments and clinics. I also follow the high school basketball scene closely. I probably enjoy high school basketball more than college due to my connection and involvement with many of the players and coaches. I’m in the small minority that cares a great deal more about BYU basketball than I do BYU football. So anytime I hear “football only” in connection to conference expansion – you can imagine how I cringe.

With that said, my opinion is evaluations of high school basketball players from Idaho are challenging. These guys play in high school against very suspect talent. You look at a guy like Harding who plays for Highland out of Pocatello (Taysom’s school). Highland plays in the 5A classification (the biggest schools), but he plays in the Eastern side of the state where the talent isn’t typically as challenging as the Western (biggest population) and in many recent years the Northern regions of the state. This is illustrated by the number of seeds Connor’s region has assigned to the state tournament. With only a handful of 5A teams in Eastern Idaho, Highland plays a lot of 4A games in contrast to the Western Idaho teams. Connor was a smart kid to join up with a club team out of Utah to establish his talent—but even these club teams can be a challenge to showcase yourself. In Connor’s case you could argue he is the 3rd or 4th best player and option on his club team from Utah.

In Connors’ case, I think the kid has a lot of potential to be very good. You could see this coming from the time he was a freshman. He has good length and for his size -- I would say very good handles. As a freshman and sophomore what stood out to me was how comfortable and smooth he was with the ball in his hands. Connor played with a teammate the last couple of years named Stephen Gonzales (6’2 athletic guard) who signed with St. Mary’s. With two division two guys on Highland’s team surrounded by a good supporting cast (including one player who committed to play football at Washington) the Rams who had struggled in the state tournament each year, was the favorite to win the state championship this year. The debate from many regarding who was the strongest player on Highland (Gonzales or Harding) to me was tilted in Harding’s favor as each opposing coach put their strongest defender Harding. Highland made it to the state championship game despite playing a below average tournament compared to all of the games (including tournament games) I have seen him play. I have not missed a state tournament game in 12 years. In the championship game against a much smaller team from Post Falls Connor again struggled heavily and couldn’t seem to hold onto the ball or get his shot to go down. He missed a lot of big free throws and his team again failed to win the tournament. With the talk of BYU recruiting him, I was interested in the kid and was disappointed with how his season ended. I wasn’t sure if BYU would offer him or not. BYU didn’t offer Stutzman out of Idaho Falls the year before and I thought there were a lot of similarities between Harding and Stutzman. Stutzman signed with San Francisco. Now that Connor signed with BYU it will be interesting to see how he develops before his mission. I stated Connor’s strengths were his length and ball handling. His challenges to me seem to be his lack of athleticism (he doesn’t blow anyone away with speed or jumping) and his toughness has to get stronger. He struggled with his shot in the tournament from beyond the arc and from the line…but this is atypical for him. He took advantage of his height getting to the rim against smaller defenders, but this is something he benefits from playing against suspect competition. He doesn’t do this nearly as frequently on his club team. All in all, by all accounts he is good kid, with a cool demeanor and is a hard worker. I would compare him to a Mark Bigelow type of wing. He is a decent shooter, with good length, but can facilitate. Maybe I should have just said he is a Dave Rose type of wing.

Regarding other Idaho talent, I have had a number of conversations with Tim LaComb about players in Idaho during the last few years and Harding was one of them that I gave my opinion on. Isaiah Wright from Borah high school (now at Utah) is the strongest, most dominating player I have seen out of Idaho. I couldn’t emphasize this enough to Tim LaComb and of course the Y was aware of the kid, but only had so many scholarships. Wright dominated his competition on both end of the court in route to winning multiple state titles. I would have loved to have seen him at the Y as he played on a team with a number of LDS kids, and LDS boosters including his best friend on the team being a huge BYU fan who was also pushing LaComb to give him a look stating he’d be a good fit at BYU. His primary offer was from Boise State until Utah swept in last minute with the offer. I look for Isaiah to take on a much bigger role for Utah this year. I think Utah got a steal if nothing else, just on the defensive end.

I didn’t intend this post to take this long. I started out wanting to give my opinion on Connor. But I will close by talking about Braiden Shaw. I know a lot of members on the board are not excited about him, and I’m in that camp. With that said, I also understand why BYU offered him. When Braiden was a Sophomore he was already 6’9 and in every discussion I had with his coach that year, the thought from everyone was that Shaw was going to grow a lot more. Braiden was very raw, but with the potential to grow he got a lot of college suitors. I really believe BYU saw this LDS kid from Idaho who had the potential to grow a lot and develop and knew they had to get in on this kid early and they offered too early in my opinion. Sadly, Shaw didn’t grow and he didn’t really develop. He was never a primary player on his team (a team that included Tanner Mangum) and his Eagle team failed to even make the state tournament in a state where almost every 5A team with a pulse makes the tournament. I watched Shaw closely for three years and my hope is the kid grew on his mission physically and mentally. He was pretty lazy, he cried to the refs non-stop and was out-worked and out-muscled by guys he had 6 inches on. He may be the softest big guy I have ever seen. I would be surprised if he ever has a role beyond what James Anderson did. He played on Wright’s club team, but as you can imagine was a non-factor.