It might be too early yet to call Jalen Suggs the next Tyus Jones.
After all, the Minnehaha Academy point guard just started his freshman year. And he won't graduate from high school until 2020 (imagine how many more Star Wars movies will come out between now and then).
But Suggs, a 6-foot-3, 170-pound five-star prospect, already has one thing in common with Jones when it comes to being recruited by the home state program. On Thursday, he became the first in-state freshman guard to receive a scholarship offer from the University of Minnesota since Jones in 2011.
Jones eventually won a national title at Duke and now plays in the NBA with the Timberwolves. The sky's the limit for Suggs, but right now he can enjoy receiving a Gopher offer for the first time.
Suggs also has offers from Baylor, Georgia Tech, Iowa State and UNLV.
Gophers coach Richard Pitino technically offered his first freshman from Minnesota in April with Rochester John Marshall 2019 forward Matthew Hurt, who had North Carolina coach Roy Williams watch him this week.
The Minnesota offer for Hurt was right after the season but he was still in his first year of high school. A consensus top 10 player in the class, Hurt already knew the Gophers wanted him badly as an eighth-grader. His older brother, Michael, is now a freshman forward at the U.
Pitino didn't get a commitment from the 2017 in-state class, but he now has six offers out to local players in the 2018-2020 classes. The four juniors with Gophers offers are Apple Valley's Tre Jones, Armstrong's Race Thompson, Cretin-Derham Hall's Daniel Oturu and DeLaSalle's Gabe Kalschuer.