Basketball Signing Day Updates

Missouri Valley Conference

(St. Louis, MO) – It’s national signing day and we’ll be bringing you updates throughout the day from the Missouri Valley Conference. The early ‘commitments’ to Valley teams have been impressive, but the ink on the page will make it as official as possible.

During the ‘portal pandemic’ era of college athletics, nothing is THAT official.

We saw an X post yesterday that St. Louis’ Saint John Vianney star Luke Walsh was ready for the official signature. Walsh is one of two three-star Southern Illinois commits and one of the 26 such players across the Valley. The guard is the sixth ranked senior in the state of Missouri.

More soon …

Signing Day – Northern Iowa

Shooting guard Geon Hutchins made it official. He is a 3.1 star prospect and rated as the State of of Michigan’s nineteenth best player. Several Michigan based universities and Illinois Chicago were rumored to have been recruiting Hutchins.

6’10 center Trevin Jirak is officially a Northern Iowa Panther. The West Des Moines native is Iowa’s #3 player and receives a 3.35 star.

A third signing came at 1:20 pm. Minnesota’s fourth ranked senior, Jalen Wilson is in the Panther fold. The 6’7 guard is a 3.26 star prospect from Minneapolis.

Walsh & Southern Illinois Signings

SIU’s Walsh made it official today as did Daniel Pauliukonis. The 6’9 forward from Bennett Academy (Darien, Illinois) is Illinois’ 25th rated player.

Prime-Time Signing

Perhaps the star of the entire Missouri Valley Conference recruiting class is Bradley’s Dietrich Richardson. The hometown star (Peoria Manual High School) is ranked fourth among all the Land of Lincoln seniors. Richardson is rated a 3.99 star prospect.

Brian Wardle’s recruiting class is outstanding. Illinois’ twelfth best player Matthew Zobrist has officially signed on. The 6’5 guard is a 3.63 star recruit from Metamora. Zobrist is a member of Bradley royalty. His cousin Nate Kannel was a Brave star and his father Aaron was a Brave and a part of the Bradley hall of fame.

Quartet of Redbirds

Ryan Pedon has signed four outstanding prospects. All four are three-star prospects with two coming from the Redbirds’ home state. Tyreek Coleman and Nick Allen are top-ten, Land of Lincoln prospects. Coleman (3.86) is the highest rated of the four and a 6’2 guard from Aurora. Allen is a 6’11 center from Bourbonnais.

North Dakota’s top-ranked player, point guard Mason Klabo is a 3.71 star and Isaac Ericksen hails from North Carolina.

Signing Day for Murray State

Tristian Ford and Kaden Ricard have signed with Murray State. Ford is a 3.79 prospect out of Rockford, Illinois and becomes the sixth highly rated Illinoisan to be joining Valley programs. While the 6’3 guard is Illinois’ sixth rated player, prephoops.com ranks him the 158th best player nationally.

Ricard is the top rated shooting guard and seventh best player in Alabama’s class of 2025. He has garnered 3.62 stars.

Trey Simpson’s signing is no surprise, but it finally came across our desk. The second Alabama native in Steve Prohm’s freshman class. Simpson is a 6’7 small forward and rated as a 3.66 star recruit. While On3 ranks Simpson a top 300 player nationally, prephoops.com rates him only 148 in his home state.

Belmont Following Suit

Casey Alexander continues to rake in highly rated prep players. The Belmont head coach routinely signs high level high school players with the ability to help early, but develop long term. Valparaiso, Indiana native Jack Smiley is the first player, not on our radar to sign. Smiley has transferred to nationally ranked La Lumiere and is the Hoosier State’s seventh ranked player and verbalcommits.com says he deserves 3.66 stars. He is the 27th three-star player in the Valley class.

We’re still waiting to hear from several of the Valley programs. We’re aware of numerous other commitments, but we are still waiting for the official announcements. Several teams were playing and traveling yesterday.

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