Arizona Wildcats Recruit Jaylen Hands – Get to know him, Gotta Love Him

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Arizona Wildcats recruit Jaylen Hands is in high demand, everyone who watches him play basketball wants him to commit to their school, but he hasn’t committed just yet.

Jaylen Hands is 16 years old, he stands somewhere between 6’1″ and 6’3″ and weighs 150-164 pounds depending on which site you pull up. Next year Jaylen will be Junior, he is part of the class of 2017, and if all goes well he will not be playing for Mater Dei, he will be playing for Foothills Christian. His CIF application is awaiting approval.

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Reported by John Maffei on May 5^th by the Union Tribune San Diego news, Arizona recruit Jaylen Hands has enrolled and is transferring from Mater Dei High School to attend Foothills Christian beginning in his Junior year. An interesting fact, Arizona commit T.J. Leaf attends Foothills Christian as well as plays for the Compton Magic AAU team that Jaylen plays for.

Ezra Amacher of PointGuardU.com spoke to T.J. Leaf and got his reaction to this news about his new high school teammate, “He’s a great player. With Jaylen coming in we’re going to be a really tough team so I’m excited about it.” This is T.J.’s senior year coming up in High School, so their team should be pretty exciting.

Jaylen Hands or “Jay Hands” (nickname) has many offers, a number of reports say he is leaning towards UCLA, but T.J. will have a great chance to woo Jaylen as they will be spending a lot of time together and T.J. is ecstatic about his committment to The University of Arizona. “I’m not going to mention any names [but] there’s a couple guys I’d really like to play with [at Arizona], I’m going to do my best as well as the coaches to get them there.”

Next: Jaylen visited Cal, how did that go?

March 12, 2015; Las Vegas, NV, USA; California Golden Bears mascot and cheerleaders perform during the first half in the quarterfinal round of the Pac-12 Conference tournament against the Arizona Wildcats at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Ryan Gorcey, from scout.com’s BearTerritory.net, spoke with Jaylen and his father Ronnie who has a connection to the Cal coaching staff, and feels very positive about what the coaching staff is accomplishing.

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Ronnie explains the coaches relationship with his son, “Yanni and Jaylen have a really good relationship. We’ve talked to coach [Martin] quite a bit. It’s really awesome to watch how that program is becoming a go-to program, and it’s happening the right way. Even when we watched the games during the year, they were always prepared, and scrappy, and played with a lot of heart.”

Coincidently, Hands received his offer from Cal after Rabb committed to Cal, part of their strategy?

Jaylen spoke to Gorcey about his visits as of a month ago in May, “I’ve visited UCLA, SDSU and Arizona, so far, and I plan to take other visits. In terms of Cal, I’m excited to see the campus, meet some of the players, get the whole vibe. That’s what I’d like to see.”

Next: How did Jaylen's visit to The University of Arizona go?

Hands travelled to Tucson Arizona to visit the University officially on March 7, 2015. During his visit, Jaylen attended a basketball game at McKale on campus.

The visit was delightfully explained by Arizona Wildcat student and sports writer Ezra Amacher of PointGuardU, Jaylen visited Arizona also with Alex Barcello and Ira Lee. He was quoted as saying “It got me more in tuned with the staff,I got to know the team and how Coach Miller coaches them. They talked a lot about how many point guards have come through, how Sean Miller and Damon Stoudamire are on staff, and how they want to keep the tradition going.”

Well, Damon Stoudamire is not on the staff anymore, but it sounds like he had a great time in Tucson.  Hands was in McKale for the celebration of the Pac-12 regular season championship, the cutting down of the nets and that all to familiar T.J. McConnell moment when he knelt and kissed the Arizona “A” on center court goodbye.

Being there in person to witness how much a Senior Arizona point guard paying homage to the school he loves so much in his last home game of his college career is special. That photo was one of the most circulated photo’s I can remember and brought tears to this sports writers eyes..still does.

“I loved the visit, I definitely would like to come back,” Hands said in Ezra’s interview.

I am assuming he also saw the ceremonial “player run through the ZonaZoo” that Arizona Wildcats players get to do if they win the Pac-12 regular season championship. If he did, that should have pounded the last nail in the coffin for all those other schools; SDSU, Cal, UCLA, and Louisville.

Next: Jaylen Hands is invited to try out for the U16 USA Basketball Team

http://www.usab.com/~/media/e1b63f36953c40f49b309a75e67c3e99.ashx

Jaylen recently tried out again for the U16 Basketball team, each time he gets great exposure and learns just a little more about basketball and gets to know the other players we will play with or against in the future.

Arizona Wildcats

Jaylen was interviewed while in camp by DraftExpress, he said he wants to be the best guard possible in his class. When asked what offers he has on the table, he mentions “Arizona” first. Oh, was that a sign? Can’t help it, this young man just seems to be such an energetic, centered and driven young player, I can see why Coach Miller is making sure Jaylen knows how interested he is in him.

As far as what he is looking for in the college his commits to, “a good relationship with my coaches” and he wants it to be a good fit for him as far as the guard position. And the NBA point guard he watches, “I really love watching John Wall, I like to play like him, model my game after him.” And he answers quickly and talks fast, not much hesitation, knows exactly what he wants to do and this is kind of how he plays the basketball.

He was asked when he first started playing basketball and how it came to be. Jaylen said when he was 2 1/2 he watched Lakers Games with his dad Ronnie. His mom Ashanti got him a Nerf basketball set. He started shooting on the Nerf set and never looked back.

He missed the final cut in the U16 USA Team, but he did make the first cut. Obviously the committee who decided on the final cut had not been watching this “Dunk off” which developed after practice between Elijah Hardy, Troy Brown (Np. 60). Carte’ Are Gordon (No.75) , and Jaylen Hands (21).

Next: What's Jaylen up to this summer?

Recently we found this tweet from his mom announcing Hands is now a 5-star recruit, #23 in the nation for the class of 2017. Darn right she should be proud! Five star recruit should have made the U16 team one would think.

Hands also was invited to the NBPA Top 100 Camp, which started yesterday.

Sounds like he is dong a great job at the NBPA Top 100 event.

The latest report on Jaylens committment choice came from Rivals.com posted, they this statement on their site, “Four-star class of 2017 point guard Jaylen Hands disputes that his college decision is down to just UCLA and Arizona.”

It’s quite possible that Arizona’s Head Coach Sean Miller is actually competing with Cal again. A Players Program and Wildcats fans lost Ivan Rabb to Cal a couple of months ago, so it would be heartbreaking to lose out again.

They say everything happens for a reason, and really this is up to Jaylen Hands and his parents which school he ultimately commits to. The school he chooses should be the best fit for him, will give him the support he needs, the care and respect he deserves and the success and celebration he will earn.

Hmm..sounds like The University of Arizona is a great fit!

Beardown Jaylen!  Have fun with the process.

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