Duquesne Basketball
Duquesne Offers Elite Ohio Recruit
Earlier this week, Ohio State surprisingly announced the firing of long-time basketball coach Thad Matta.
The announcement was the talk of college basketball and the move has impacted people including Ohio 2018 guard Justin Ahrens.
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Following the dismissal of Matta, Ahrens announced that he was re-opening his recruiting and decommitting from Ohio State.
🙏🙏🙏 pic.twitter.com/aGZ8vUPlZS
— Justin Ahrens (@ahrensjustin12) June 6, 2017
“It was just all of a sudden and really took me by surprise with the timing and how it was so unexpected. Obviously it was saddening but because of that I was forced to re-open my recruitment. I’ve hit the re-start button and am now building new relationships with every program that reaches out to me,” said Ahrens.
Within hours of Ahrens announcement, he received a call from the Duquesne coaching staff who offered him a scholarship and they weren’t the only ones that have contacted him.
“It’s been crazy so far. A lot of schools have been contacting me. I’ve gotten six offers since de-committing (Dayton, Duquesne, Texas A&M, Oakland, Stony Brook) and schools that have contacted me have been VCU, Florida, Stanford, UNLV, Texas, Illinois, Purdue and Xavier.”
Courtesy of Justin Ahrens
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Now that he’s a free agent again, Ahrens will be taking his time before making any future decisions.
“I’m going to take my time with my next decision. I’m really going to wait things out and take all five official visits before deciding anything,” said Ahrens.
As I mentioned, the Dukes were one of the first to contact him and Coach Dambrot believes Ahrens is a player that Duquesne can build around.
“They called me a couple hours after I announced it. They told me that they really believe I can fit in with them and play as a freshman and come in and make an impact on the team right away. They believe they can help me get to the next level. They believe that I can help change their program,” said Ahrens.
“I’d say my biggest strength is my ability to shoot the ball. I’m really starting to get known for it now. I’m also sneaky athletic and can put the ball on the floor when I need to.”
Duquesne is looking for players to get them to the next level and Ahrens would fit that description. Pgh Sports Now will continue to follow him as he re-starts his recruitment.
