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UW men's basketball: Arizona prep's potential impresses Badgers coaches

Rob Schultz  —  4/17/2008 10:25 am

College coaches receive DVDs or news stories about potential recruits from friends, fans and others all the time. Everybody, it seems, wants to say they helped discover the next great prodigy.

That's why the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team's Howard Moore wasn't expecting much after he was given a DVD of Ryan Evans, a standout forward from Hamilton High School in Chandler, Ariz., this past winter by a mutual friend.

So you can imagine Moore's surprise when he hit the play button on his remote and saw the 6-foot-6, 190-pound Evans dominating basketball games with his raw athleticism and scoring ability. Those are moments that will be etched in Moore's mind forever.

"I was, like, 'Holy smokes,"' said Moore, a UW assistant coach who soon after embarked on a cross-country journey that would eventually lead Evans to sign a national letter of intent Wednesday afternoon to play for the Badgers.

Evans, projected as a small forward/shooting guard, is the fifth recruit for the 2008-09 freshman class that also includes centers Jared Berggren (Princeton, Minn.) and Ian Markolf (San Antonio), swingman Robert Wilson (Garfield Heights, Ohio) and point guard Jordan Taylor (St. Louis Park, Minn.).

When Moore saw the skinny Evans on that DVD, he immediately thought of Evan Turner, another skinny guard who Moore and the Badgers recruited hard out of Chicago two years ago before he spurned them and went to Ohio State. Turner just finished a strong freshman season with the Buckeyes.

"I think he has a better lift off the floor than Evan does and he's a better perimeter shooter than Evan," said Moore, who believes Evans has the ability to gain weight and strength quickly like Turner did at Ohio State this past season.

"Look at Ryan's dad and you know he's going to fill out," Moore said of Evans' father, Greg, who was a wrestler at Minnesota in the early 1980s. "His dad is a big guy."

When UW coach Bo Ryan saw the DVD for the first time and watched Evans find seams in defenses and get his shot off in traffic, he immediately thought of a very familiar former standout from his days coaching at UW-Platteville.

"Bo said, 'That's Robby Jeter,"' said Moore, referring to his former player who led UW-Platteville to an NCAA Division III title before becoming an assistant under Ryan. Jeter is now the head coach at UW-Milwaukee. "He has that silky, snaky part to his game that Rob had."

Just as important, Evans is an outstanding student from an athletic family that also includes an uncle, Dave Evans, who was an All-American wrestler at Wisconsin in the late 1970s and early '80s during the Lee Kemp era. The Evans family is originally from Rockford, Ill. Greg Evans moved his family to the Phoenix area when Ryan was 3.

Also, Evans' charismatic personality reminds the Wisconsin staff of Alando Tucker. "He's more outgoing than Alando was when he was a freshman," said UW assistant Greg Gard. "His personality is A-plus. You're going to love him. He's very articulate, a very sharp kid."

How Evans escaped the watchful eyes of college recruiters across the country until late in his senior year is due partly to a growth spurt of six or seven inches in three years. As a sophomore, Evans didn't even make his high school team.

As Evans literally grew into the game, his incredible desire helped him overcome any lack of experience. That allowed him to turn into a first-team All-State selection who averaged 19 points, 7.7 points and 2.0 blocks as a senior while leading Hamilton to within a game of the state tournament title game.

"His senior year he just started putting up ridiculous numbers. The kid just flew under the radar. We were lucky to find out about him and we got on him first," said Moore, who added that Wisconsin started recruiting him just as Pepperdine, Michigan, Illinois and Purdue began making inquiries.

"The season ended and schools were going to ask him to play in the spring AAU events to see him," Moore said. "A kid like this playing in the spring is going to get a good offer, he was going to sign with somebody."

The Badgers had one scholarship left to give and, instead of holding it for a potential verbal commitment from a 2009 recruit like Racine's highly regarded Jamil Wilson, they didn't hesitate to offer it to Evans. He got the offer shortly after visiting Madison and the UW campus and seeing the Badgers capture the Big Ten Conference regular-season title with a victory over Penn State at the Kohl Center.

"The thing is, you see a kid like this with grades and charisma and character and work ethic. You saw what he did: He made himself a player," said Moore. "He's a kid ... that you know is nowhere near his potential. When you get a kid like that, you can't pass him up. You can't worry what's down the line. You worry about that when it gets there. For right now, we feel we just got a pretty good player."

Evans certainly fits the Wisconsin style of recruitment.

"Discovering late-bloomers, individuals with their best basketball in front of them and finding student-athletes who understand what type of commitment it takes to be successful both academically and athletically at Wisconsin have always been key components of our recruiting strategy and we feel Ryan will really develop into a very good player with continued hard work," said UW's Ryan in a statement.

Moore visited Evans in Phoenix just before the Badgers played at Ohio State on Feb. 24. He hoped to make it to the game but his connecting flight from Detroit to Columbus ended up back in Detroit after fog wouldn't allow his plane to land. With less than four hours to tipoff, Moore jumped in a rental car and drove to Columbus and got to the arena as the game started.

It was all worth it, Moore said. "You just root for a kid like this," he concluded. "He's going to be successful. There's no doubt about it."

Rob Schultz  —  4/17/2008 10:25 am