Xavier Nation Magazine Feature: Hoosier Highway

Shortly after leading Bloomington South High to a 4A Indiana state championship and nabbing tournament MVP honors in 2009, sophomore point guard Dee Davis became a hot commodity on the recruiting trail.

Xavier, Purdue, and Ohio University offered him scholarships. Several other schools, including Butler, showed interest.

Davis—an AAU star for Indiana Elite with a burgeoning basketball reputation—doused other programs' hopes when he committed to the Musketeers the summer before his junior year. Extracting a Hoosier from his home state was a coup for Xavier's staff.

It wasn't an isolated experience.

The pipeline from Indiana to Cintas Center has become a popular conduit during the last decade. Former coach Chris Mack signed players from 16 states in his nine years at the helm, but none so frequently as Indiana: Davis, Jeff Robinson, Justin Martin, Trevon Bluiett, and Paul Scruggs.
hoosier highway

While Indiana historically produces high-level talent and a deep well of players, Xavier's place as a contender over the last decade also has been driven by the recruiting strides of new head coach Travis Steele.

The Danville, Indiana, native graduated from Butler University and coached high schoolers and AAU players in his home state. He brought a wealth of connections to Xavier in 2008 as Director of Basketball Operations under Sean Miller. Steele was promoted to assistant coach the next year and eventually became the associate head coach before replacing Mack at the helm March 31.

Davis, who has played professional basketball internationally since graduating from Xavier in 2015, says the attentiveness of the coaching staff—Steele especially—and the bond he built with teammates factored heavily into his college decision. Although he dreamed of playing for Indiana University as a kid, he took his talents to the Buckeye State.

Brian Snow, a national recruiting analyst for 247Sports.com, expects that Indiana-to-Xavier trend to strengthen under Steele. The 36-year-old coach reinforced the notion in his introductory press conference, insisting that in recruiting, the program will continue to encompass a "bread basket" area, or five-hour radius from Cincinnati.

"Steele is a coach who genuinely enjoys recruiting and knows its importance to a college basketball program," Snow says. "In my opinion, Steele will be as personally involved with recruiting as any head coach in the country, and I don't expect Xavier to miss a beat."

hoosier highway

XAVIER BRAND TRAVELS WEST

Xavier's recruiting philosophy is simple: Find the best players possible.

The Musketeers' NCAA Tournament success and BIG EAST Conference affiliation have opened more doors than ever before. The entire country is a potential recruiting ground, but Xavier's ideal range is close enough for recruits and families to hop in their cars and drive to campus.

Although former assistants Mike Pegues and Luke Murray prospected in regions based on their own backgrounds and relationships, the coaches were not limited to one area. The goal was to cover as much ground as possible.

Location is only part of the equation. Xavier identifies needs for each recruiting class, so if the program seeks a shooting guard, coaches target the best ones available whether they're in-state or not. It's worth noting that the Musketeers had just three Ohio scholarship players in the last nine years: Semaj Christon and transfers Matt Stainbrook and RaShid Gaston. Christon was the lone signee from a Cincinnati-area high school (Winton Woods).

Snow attributes the greater number of Xavier commits from the state to Indiana's robust grassroots basketball presence.

"It's is just a basketball-centric area," he says. "Whereas the best athletes in Cincinnati typically play football, the best athletes in Indiana play basketball. With that it's going to produce a lot of high-level players."

Other considerations include Xavier's brand, which diminishes north of Dayton. Columbus is Big Ten country and Cleveland can be distance-prohibitive. Recruiting is inherently fragile anyway, swayed by any number of reasons—a recruit's parents' ties to a school, a program's style of play—but Xavier has come up empty in Ohio more times than coaches would have liked.

Last summer in particular was difficult for Xavier in the recruiting realm. Many potential signees became near-misses.

"It is frustrating," Steele says. "I think a lot of kids look at your roster and they're going to say, 'Hey, where do I fit in?' When you have Paul Scruggs, Elias Harden, and Naji Marshall in the class ahead of you, they start saying, 'What about me? Where do I fit? Where's my opportunity?' Nobody wants to just come in and be seen as 'depth.'"

When Xavier coaches sit down with kids and their families, their presentation extolls the university's strong academics, big-time basketball, winning tradition, and location. None of that matters for a kid who wants to study, say, engineering, a program Xavier does not offer. (And Xavier has lost out on players for that reason.) For players like Davis, though, Xavier checked all the right boxes. He ultimately was sold on the feeling of belonging.

"Seeing the bond the guys had with each other while on visits and coming to games was [something] I wanted to be a part of," Davis says. "The coaching staff at Xavier did a great job at making me feel wanted and needed."

SCRUGGS CARRIES THE TORCH

Trevon Bluiett left Indiana as one its most decorated high school players in history. He scored 2,568 points at Park Tudor High, etching his name in sixth place on the state's all-time scoring list and winning three Class 2A state championships.

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The guard from Indianapolis was recruited hardest by in-state schools Indiana, Purdue, Butler, and Notre Dame and out-of-state contenders Michigan State, Memphis, and Xavier. Bluiett threw coaches a curve when he committed to UCLA on his first official college visit. It wasn't long before he realized California was too far from his family.

Xavier rose to the top of the list when Bluiett reopened his search. The university's closeness to home was a huge draw, and its small enrollment suited him more than the Bruins' 45,000 students.

"I think you've got to know what a kid is looking for in a school," Steele says. "For example, Trevon went to Park Tudor High School. It's a private school. And he grew up in Pike Township. Pike High School has a phenomenal basketball program, but there was a reason why he went to Park Tudor. He wanted a smaller environment. I felt that gave us a good niche or a good shot with Trevon."
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Steele and Mack started recruiting Bluiett in eighth grade and the long relationship mattered. Bluiett knew them well and trusted them, and he was assured he had a chance to impact the Musketeers as a freshman. He followed his intuition and inked his National Letter of Intent.

"I just wanted to go somewhere where I feel like somebody's going to use me to my advantage," Bluiett says. "They're going to use me the right way. And with the style of play that I saw that they played and what the coaches were telling me, I felt like it was the best move for me." Scruggs will represent for Indiana after Bluiett's graduation, as the 2018 freshman recruiting class did not include a Hoosier. They were 7-foot center Jake Walter (Kentucky) and 6-foot-8 forward Dontarius James (South Carolina).

Because recruiting remains an eternal grind, Xavier's staff will continue to strengthen its connections in its targeted area and beyond.

"It's all about selling the opportunity and selling Xavier and this great place that we have," Steele says. "Obviously, having the season we had last year—winning the BIG EAST regular-season championship and having a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament—the exposure that our program got was incredible. We reached coast to coast. Not that we're going to start recruiting coast to coast, but our brand is continuing to strengthen."

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