4-star SG has Ohio State in his top 4

While the Ohio State Buckeyes football team dominated the headlines this weekend with their impressive dismantling of the Oregon State Beavers, the Bucks’ men’s basketball team made progress on the recruiting trail for a top prospect in the 2019 class.

The state of Indiana vs. The state of Ohio

Four-star shooting guard Brandon Newman (Valparaiso, IN / Valparaiso) is the prospect in question that the Buckeyes are after. On Sunday, Newman announced his top four teams on Twitter—which included Ohio State.

If the Scarlet and Gray were to win his recruitment, they will have to wrestle him away from three dominant schools, all geographically close to one another. Indiana and Purdue, both Big Ten programs, are in the mix for Newman. Archie Miller has got the wheels turning in Bloomington, Ind., and the Hoosiers could be a real contender this year in the conference. Purdue had a stellar season last year, and has consistently done well in the Matt Painter era.

Those two programs are in Newman’s home state of Indiana. It’ll be a struggle for Chris Holtmann and the Buckeyes, as they will need persuade him to leave two programs close to home—which also happen to be two very good programs and institutions, too.

On top of battling out the Big Ten foes, Xavier cracked the list in Newman’s four. This may be more of a rebuild year for the Musketeers as former head coach Chris Mack has moved on to Louisville, but snagging the No. 4 prospect in Indiana would be a big coup on the recruiting circuit. At the moment, Xavier has the No. 5 recruiting class in ‘19, and the best class in the Big East.

Newman is the graded as the 101st best prospect in the class, and 17th best shooting guard, according to the 247sports composite. He recently visited Purdue, but early 247sports crystal balls (two of them) have Indiana as the projected landing spot. The work is cut out for Holtmann, however, his recent recruiting win in the ‘19 class with five-star DJ Carton proves that he can bring the talent to Columbus.

Checking out the program

Transitioning to the football scene, the Buckeyes hosted a handful of recruits this weekend as the season kicked off.

One of the recruits that visited was Trey Leroux (Norwalk, OH / Norwalk) of the 2020 class. An offensive tackle, Leroux doesn’t have that many offers in yet, nor does he have a composite recruiting score. 247sports, however, did issue a recruiting grade of their own to the Ohio native; Leroux is seen as the 423rd best prospect in the class, 48th best OT, and seventh best in the Buckeye State.

Late Sunday evening, Leroux posted to Twitter about having a great time on his visit to OSU.

Expect communication lines to stay open between the Ohio native and the flagship Ohio program, with Greg Studrawa taking the lead on his recruitment. If the Buckeyes are still about getting home grown talent, this would be a prospect worth pursuing, as he still has time to develop.