It was announced Tuesday that signees in the 2017 class for the IU men’s and women’s basketball teams received nominations for the McDonald’s All-American Game.
IU women’s coach Teri Moren hit the recruiting trail hard for her 2017 class, and it paid off. There are five three-star or better commits signed on to play for her team next season.
Of the five committed recruits for the 2017 women’s class, four players are nominees for the All-America game March 29 in the United Center in Chicago. Those four are Alexis Johnson from Texas, Jaelynn Penn from Kentucky, Bendu Yeaney from Oregon and Linsey Marchese from Georgia.
Penn figures to have the best chance of taking part in the All-American game because she is rated a five-star recruit by most major recruiting services and headlines the IU class that ESPN ranks as the best in the Big Ten.
Twenty-four men’s players and 24 women’s players will be selected to represent the teams, which are West and East. More than 700 young men and women from across the country were nominated to be McDonald’s All-Americans. The final teams will be set 10:30 p.m. Jan. 15 on ESPNU.
Four-star forward Justin Smith was named a nominee for the men’s game, which also takes place at the United Center the same night as the women’s game. Smith is the only current IU men’s signee to have been named a nominee.
Smith is a native of Lincolnshire, Illinois, and is IU Coach Tom Crean’s highest-rated recruit for the upcoming class. According to Rivals, he is the 105th-rated recruit nationally.
Josh Eastern
