Basketball Recruiting Update: BPJ, Carrigan Explode

The Huskies will have to fend off seemingly everyone for their top targets at Center

By Max Vrooman@UWDP_maxvroom Jul 21, 2017, 7:30am PDT

MLB: Kansas City Royals at Seattle Mariners

The Plot Thickens

Bryan Penn-Johnson

C; Wasatch Academy, UT; 6’10”, 200

Scout: 4 stars, #98 overall; 247 Sports: 4 stars, #39 overall; ESPN: 4 stars

For a period of a couple weeks it looked like BPJ’s recruitment would involve a fight between UW and Utah. Penn-Johnson has seemingly been UW’s top target at center for a while now and a heads-up battle with Utah is a very winnable fight. During the last update I mentioned that UCLA and Arizona offered which was unfortunate but the offer list has increased exponentially since then. BPJ now holds offers from Oregon, Florida State, Kansas, Louisville, and Wichita State.

It remains to be seen how he’ll react to the slew of offers and whether he feels an attachment to any of them. The last time he spoke about UW he mentioned that he was talking with the UW coaching staff every day. UW, Utah, and Colorado coaches were in attendance this weekend to watch him play while most programs were entirely focused on Peach Jam. The offers from those other schools could just be to gauge interest. I don’t get the sense that BPJ is the #1 priority for any of those schools like he is for UW and Utah. But if his recruitment drags on for a while and other top targets commit elsewhere, that may change. UW’s best chance is for him to announce relatively quickly while those other programs battle for the guys in the top-20. Still, at this point if BPJ ends up on Montlake it will be a monumental recruiting win close to on par in difficulty with getting Fultz.

Dimon Carrigan

C; Woodstock Academy, CT; 6’9”, 212

ESPN: 4 stars; 247Sports: 4 stars

NIKE Peach Jam Defensive POTS: Dimon Carrigan
READ: https://t.co/rm5V8O4i7W pic.twitter.com/XiXoTR9Ii6
— D1 Circuit (@D1Circuit) July 19, 2017

Carrigan had an extremely good Peach Jam which saw him receive multiple new offers. That performance included stat lines of 9 points, 16 rebounds, and 6 blocks as well as 11 points, 11 rebounds, 6 blocks, and 4 steals. He won Defensive Player of the Session and made 3rd team all-session as well. Pretty good for a guy who still has no star rating on scout.com. He’s still a work in progress on offense but his shot blocking abilities are in the 99th percentile with his 7’3 wingspan.

He seems perfect as the center in the 2-3 zone. It’s no surprise then that Syracuse offered him, setting up a potential battle between Hopkins and his mentor. However, Carrigan also picked up offers from Texas and Clemson this weekend in addition to previous ones from Connecticut, Miami, and Georgia Tech. The Syracuse recruiting expert on Scout feels like Syracuse is firmly in the lead for Carrigan but we’ll know more soon. Carrigan confirmed on Wednesday via Twitter that he’ll cut down his list of potential schools on August 1st. It seemed like UW would definitely make that list before the recent round of offers but we’ll see if they are still in the top-5. The fact that he liked my retweet of the cutdown adding that UW is probably in the mix seems like a hint that they will be. Finally, check out this great article on Carrigan that ran in the Boston Globe. It certainly makes it sound like he’s the type of player the Huskies want both on and off the court.

Minor Updates

Nic Lynch

C; Seattle Prep High School, WA; 6’10”, 255

Scout: 3 stars; ESPN: 2 stars

In previous updates, I’ve mentioned that Lynch would most likely sign on the dotted line to become a Husky today if given the opportunity. However, the two centers above and possibly one below are seemingly higher on UW’s offer list at the moment and the local Seattle Prep target feels like a fallback option. Lynch is solid but is clearly missing the extra gear of athleticism that BPJ and Carrigan have. He took an official visit to Columbia last month and also picked up an offer from Wazzu which doubles his number of Power-5 offers. Lynch stated recently that his recruitment is wide open so he’ll likely wait it out to see if he gets another Pac-12 offer or two and to know if there’s room for him with the Dawgs.

Emmitt Matthews

SF; Wilson High School, WA; 6’7”, 180

Scout: 3 stars; 247Sports: 3 stars

The small forward from Tacoma recently interviewed with Rivals to talk about the state of his recruitment. About Washington he said “I like the new staff. I didn’t expect coach [Mike] Hopkins to be so energetic and pumped as he was. He’s like the Energizer bunny. We’ve talked a lot about when he was at Syracuse and his experience out there.” To this point the only school that he has visited is Oregon State but LSU and Washington State are also involved. I felt like there was only room for one wing in the 2018 class and Ed Chang is already on board so I’d be very surprised if Matthews ended up at UW.

Jamal Bey

SF; Bishop Gorman High School, NV; 6’7”, 195

Scout: 3 stars; 247 Sports: 3 stars; ESPN: 3 stars

The Las Vegas Sun interviewed Bey about the state of his recruitment and it sounds like Washington is still pursuing him the hardest. Like I said with Matthews, I’m still skeptical that the Dawgs will take another wing unless they have at least 4 transfers from the program at the end of the year but it doesn’t sound like Chang’s commitment completely shut the door on Bey coming to Montlake.

Add to the List

Majur Majok

C; Village Christian Schools, CA; 7’1”, 205

Scout: 3 stars; 247 Sports: 3 stars; ESPN: 4 stars

Understandably, UW is focused intently on the Center position and Majok marks the 6th one that Coach Hop has offered. Majok is originally from Sudan so he’s relatively new to basketball and very raw. The Dawgs are the latest offer for him and he already holds them from Connecticut, San Diego State, Seton Hall, and Nevada.

Xavier Johnson

PG; Bishop O’Connell High School, VA; 6’3”, 170

Scout: 3 stars

Not every site has Johnson listed as an offer from UW so I held off on adding him to the list but it appears as if he may have moved into the 2nd priority slot at PG. Coach Hopkins apparently spent a lot of time looking at both Zegarowski and Johnson while at Peach Jam. It sounded like Johnson was waiting until after Peach Jam to see if he could get additional offers before making any attempt to trim his list.

Future Offers

A quick note that UW offered a pair of shooting guards for the class of 2019 and 2020 in the last two weeks. They are Khalif Battle, brother of Syracuse player Tyus Battle, out of New Jersey for the class of 2019. And Marjon Beauchamp from Nathan Hale for the class of 2020. Battle already has offers from Miami and Syracuse while UW is the first major offer for Beauchamp.