Kobe Johnson
Despite all the uncertainty that has surrounded the basketball world, and the entire country for that matter, since early March, we at Triple Double Prospects are committed to continuing to produce the best content possible regarding Ohio’s top high school basketball prospects.
Based on our past notes, as well as evaluations from six different events over the last month, we are proud to release our new prospect rankings/player database. Both the 2021 and 2022 lists received major overhauls, while the 2023 list is our first official position based database for this class, as opposed to our previous alphabetical watch list.
So, what are some of the storylines behind this latest update?
First let’s start in the class of 2021, where the big story is the commitment to Ohio State by Akron STVSM wing Malaki Branham, arguably the top 2021 prospect in the state. Joining Branham in making a high-major commitment is Canton McKinley guard Kobe Johnson, a prospect who generated a lot of buzz in Northeast Ohio before making his pledge to Coach Huggins last week. Including Sunday’s commitment to Kent State by Thomas Worthington point guard Jalen Sullinger, there are currently ten rising seniors in the state committed to NCAA D1 programs. With this class being exceptionally deep in talent, expect that number to propel into the mid-30’s by the end of the winter.
In the class of 2022 the two big storylines are the return of Chris Livingston (the state’s top ranked prospect) to an OHSAA school, along with an unusual amount of early NCAA D1 verbal commitments. As for Livingston, he announced Sunday that he would be re-enrolling at Akron Butchel (where he spent his freshman year) after spending this past season at Western Reserve Academy. Regarding the string of early commitments, four rising juniors are already off the board as Cincinnati Princeton’s Bowen Hardman (Ohio State), Garfield Heights’ Sonny Johnson Jr (Penn State), Philo’s AJ Clayton (Ohio) and Worthington Christian’s DJ Moore (Liberty) have all seen enough from the schools recruiting them to make an early decision.
Finally, the class of 2023 is one we have to admit we’re not as comfortable with as we normally would be (primarily due to the COVID issued shortened travel season). But even with that being said, we have seen enough basketball from that class to produce a list, with players such as Rayvon Griffith and Marlon Barnes having proven on a regional stage that they can compete with anyone.
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