KC native Tamar Bates will announce his college choice on Friday; KU, MU trailing UT?
Former Piper High School shooting guard Tamar Bates, who is headed to IMG Academy in Florida for the 2020-21 boys basketball season, will announce his college choice on Friday.
The 6-foot-5 Bates — he averaged 22.1 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.0 steals per game last season at Piper — told The Star he will choose between Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Iowa State, Creighton, Oregon and Alabama at 10:30 a.m., Friday, on the Rivals.com Instagram account.
Various internet analysts are speculating that Texas has emerged as the favorite. Two Rivals.com recruiting analysts and three from 247sports.com all believe Texas will be the choice.
The 2020 DiRenna Award winner and member of the KC Run GMC AAU program is ranked No. 83 in the recruiting class of 2021 by Rivals.com. He hit 58% of his shots (46% from three) and 88% of his free throws his junior season for 21-1 Piper.
He narrowed his list of schools to seven on Aug. 18.
In July, he commented on KU and Mizzou to Eric Bossi of Rivals.com.
Of KU, Bates said: “They have been turning things up lately. I talk to somebody every week. I mean coach (Norm) Roberts texts me all the time and is letting me know they are watching. They are definitely prioritizing me and want me to be another hometown guy that comes to their school. They’ve got a lot of those guys this year and they just want to make a push to get me to be another one that comes to Kansas.”
Of Mizzou he said: “They are actually prioritizing me a lot. They have put me in a group chat with all of the coaches and all of them are active. That’s a good program. They play in the SEC and Cuonzo Martin ... that’s a great dude. Me and him have a very good relationship. Mizzou, that will probably be one of the places that I do end up taking an official visit to because of the relationship that we’ve all built. My parents, my grandparents, we want to see how it works out with them.”
