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Photo by Gary Nieter, Times-Union
DeKalb's Luke Recker, a Mr. Basketball candidate, hangs on the rim after slamming home two of his 38 points Saturday.
SYRACUSE - Three weeks ago NBA draft expert Pete Setter Jr. chatted with Chet Coppock on his NewSportTalk show, a 90-minute sports talk show out of New York.
The name Luke Recker came up. Setter raved about Recker. Even called him a "young Rex Chapman."
Watch any Indiana University college basketball telecast with Dick Vitale. Vitale raves about Recker.
Scouts consider Recker one of the top three shooting guards in the nation, but he plays point guard, albeit a point guard who shoots first and passes second. They also say he's the best Big Ten recruit this season.
But on Saturday, Recker was just another high school kid leading his high school basketball team, DeKalb, to a 71-47 win over Wawasee.
Recker, a strong favorite for Mr. Basketball who will play at IU, showed he is well on his way to living up to the hype. He scored 38 on 16-of-24 shooting (67 percent) and had eight rebounds, five steals, two assists and one slam dunk. He spent two or three minutes at most on the bench.
"Luke's a great leader," DeKalb coach Cliff Hawkins said. "He's an oustanding player and a lot of fun to be around. You probably never know what a Division I player is until you see one. When you see one, you understand what they are."
Outside of Recker, the other storyline to the game was DeKalb's height. With Recker at 6-foot-5, a 6-10 center, two 6-3 starting forwards and a 6-6 sixth man, DeKalb more closely resembled a college team than a high school team. Three of Wawasee's five starters are 5-10 or shorter.
The height paid off this game, as DeKalb forced Wawasee to rely on a perimeter-shooting game. The Barons shut down the passing lanes inside.
"We couldn't establish any inside game," Wawasee coach Jerry Davis said. "We have a 6-4 guy, and they have a 6-10 guy. We get it in there, what are we going to do?"
DeKalb, ranked No. 10, outrebounded Wawasee 31-16 and had just 11 turnovers to the Warriors' 22. DeKalb shot 55 percent from the field, hitting 30 of 55 shots. The Barons have won their first three games by an average of 31 points. They score 77 a game and give up just 46.
"We expect to play defense," Hawkins said. "Our first three efforts have been 49, 43 and 47. We would have been disappointed had they gotten 50."
Wawasee's perimeter game kept the Warriors close until two minutes before halftime, when they trailed 28-21. But a 9-3 run in the last two minutes, sparked by 7 from Recker, gave DeKalb a 37-24 halftime lead.
Recker's three-pointer kicked off the third quarter and kicked DeKalb ahead 40-24. The Warriors hung around, pulling within 12 at 45-33, but four Recker points spurred a 6-0 run that put DeKalb ahead 51-33 with three minutes left in the third quarter.
Wawasee never recovered after that little DeKalb run.
"All week preparing, we thought if we could control the tempo and handle the basketball and rebound, we would have a pretty decent shot," Davis said. "Even going down 17 (actually 13) at halftime, we turned the ball over 16 times the first half. Despite their size advantage and having a great player in Recker, if we could have taken care of what we wanted to do, we would have been a lot better off."
DeKalb improved to 3-0.
Wawasee, 2-1, hosts Warsaw on Friday.
