By: Mike DeCourcy (Sporting News)
INDIANAPOLIS—For all the attention he draws from opponents, Noah Vonleh never has been surrounded like this. Standing adjacent to a basketball court at North Central High, site of this summer’s adidas Invitational tournament, he is working hard not to be intimidated by the sight of nearly two dozen microphones stretched toward his chin.
As was the case with most of his basketball endeavors on this night, Vonleh is struggling. Typically loquacious, he all but retreats from the digital recorders and iPhones arrayed in front of him.
“I didn’t come ready to play today,” Vonleh said. “I didn’t have my best performance. I took a lot of crazy shots, wasn’t getting to the basket like I normally do. That’s about it. I should have come out ready to play.”
This is college basketball recruiting in the summer of 2012. Still two years removed from high school graduation—an incredibly versatile 6-9 forward, he ranks among the top-five prospects in the Class of 2014—Vonleh is feeling compelled to explain a substandard performance to an army of reporters representing daily newspapers, national recruiting services, national sports websites, team-specific sites and even a longtime columnist who now works for a TV station.
A little more than two decades ago, when the Nike All-American Camp was stationed here on the IUPUI campus, there were maybe a half-dozen reporters in attendance as future Final Four stars Corliss Williamson and Tony Delk showed off their skills.
Vonleh is not entirely new to this circus. ESPN wrote a lengthy piece about his potential when he still was a junior varsity player. The rapid escalation in attention, though, does have an impact. As he competed Wednesday night, the coaches watching in plain sight included Final Four vets Bill Self of Kansas, Thad Matta of Ohio State, Ben Howland of UCLA and Jim Calhoun of Connecticut. North Carolina’s Roy Williams and Kentucky’s John Calipari sent assistants.
Originally from Haverhill, Mass., a rising junior at New Hampshire’s New Hampton Prep, Vonleh is attractive to all of them not only because of his obvious and varied talents but also because his parents, as immigrants from Liberia, have no school allegiances and there’s no particular power to beat near his home base. Geography is becoming less a factor in basketball recruiting, but coaches will pounce when it’s no factor at all.
“Right now, I don’t have any schools that I’m favoring,” Vonleh said. “I’m just going to keep waiting until the end of the summer, and then I’ll probably cut down my list of schools. But right now, I’m open to everyone.”
In addition to interacting with reporters, Vonleh also is coping with the new regulations—or lack thereof—regarding communication from college coaches. They can text and call as often as they like, which is far more often than he would prefer. His summer coach with the Mass Elite, Vin Pastore, said Vonleh has stopped responding to coaches’ calls and won’t resume until the summer is through.
It’s then that Vonleh intends to cut the list of schools recruiting him to a manageable number. That might include Indiana, Kentucky and Louisville; he addressed each of them when questioned Wednesday night. Syracuse was the first school to offer him a scholarship—fully three years ago, and Pitt was there about the same time.
It’s easy to see why they’re all enamored of Vonleh, even if your first glimpse is on a night when he performs poorly. Vonleh can play every position on the floor, certainly at this level and probably even in Division I. He began Wednesday’s game against the Atlanta Celtics by setting up in the low post and ended it functioning as a point guard because “we were struggling, we weren’t making any shots, our guards weren’t getting to the basket. I had to try to step up and get some guys open.”
Pastore said he allows Vonleh to make decisions about where to station himself at a given moment because he is more interested in developing the young man’s talent than winning tournament games.
“Part of him maturing as a basketball player is him understanding who is covering him and what to do,” Pastore said. “I try to let him figure it out. Kind of like a catcher calling his own game. At the next level, sometimes he’s going to have bigs on him he can go by; sometimes he’s going to have guards on him.”
Vonleh is working to develop a game similar to Kevin Durant’s. It’s a worthy goal, but Durant’s knack for scoring is preternatural. Pastore admits it’s more of an effort for Vonleh, although he is a capable shooter with a nice little jumphook into his left shoulder. On the other hand, Vonleh’s frame likely will accommodate far more power than Durant has managed and he’ll have a chance to be a more impactful defender.
Most important is that Vonleh willingly plays inside even though he has perimeter skills, eagerly shares the ball even though he is the best player on his team and continues to work at expanding his game even though few his age have such an arsenal of skills.
“The bottom line with him: He’s going to play somewhere, some position, but it’s going to be on the court — no matter where he goes to school,” Pastore said. “He’s a winner in every aspect of the game.
“He’s a gentleman. He has not been poisoned by the system.”
