It may be a smaller class that head coach Jordan Delp and his staff are bringing into the Augustana College men’s basketball program in the 2024 recruiting class, but the first-time head coach is thrilled about the seven who are becoming Vikings.
“We’re excited about the guys that have decided to call Augustana home,” Delp said. “It’s a dynamic group of young men that will be added into what we already have and help us continue impacting winning.
“More than that, I think it’s a class full of fine young men from phenomenal families that are about the right kind of stuff. They’re going to believe in the values of Augustana basketball and represent our community well.”
The seven include a pair of Quad-Citians — former Riverdale High School standout Jake Willems, a 6-foot-5 guard who scored over 1,500 points for the Rams, and former United Township Panther Dominic Rhoden, a 6-1 guard.
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“He brings a scoring punch and defensive awareness with an eagerness to execute the less glamorous parts of winning,” Delp said of the gritty Willems, who helped the Rams to a 22-9 season and a second straight Class 2A regional title last season. “We can’t wait for him to bring those winning traits to Augustana.”
Delp also appreciates that Rhoden “epitomizes the blue-collar nature of the QCA — he always plays hard, holds his teammates accountable to that standard and will relentlessly pressure our opponents on both sides of the ball.”
Maybe the biggest feature of this group is the size that comes in to help build on a group that welcomes back all but one player who rallied for a competitive 9-17 record. Always in need of front-line help, the Vikings add Tristan Jackson (6-7, wing, Salida, Colorado, and the University of Colorado), JJ Hernandez (6-5, wing, Glenbard North High School in Illinois), and Jason Lawani (6-5, forward, Bolingbook High School in Illinois).
“We are going to keep recruiting intelligently and try to bring in positional size and also understand that we want great basketball players and great young men,” Delp said. “We’re certainly trying to bring some positional size that can help make things a little harder on opponents on both sides of the floor and gobble up some rebounds for us.”
Jackson, a walk-on at Colorado this past season, was a player who Delp said the Vikings had contact with while in high school when he was named Colorado Class 3A Player of the Year as a senior.
“Once he entered the portal, he was certainly somebody we had an eye on very early on since we had already established a relationship with him,” Delp said of Jackson, who has four years of eligibility remaining. “Things didn’t work out for him there, but we knew he was the type of kid who would come in and have an opportunity to have an impact.”
The class also includes Noah Johnson (6-3, forward, Colorado Springs, Colorado) and Josh Aniceto (5-9, guard, Bolingbrook)
All of these recruits earned some sort of postseason region or state recognition.
While this is the core of the 2024 recruiting class, Delp hinted that a few more late additions may be looming before the Vikings open the 2024-25 season on Nov. 12 against Coe College at the Carver Center.
