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Mizzou among early suitors for versatile forward

Antonio Curro isn’t surprised that Logan Landers is seeing his recruiting stock rise. Despite the fact that he hasn’t played in a live basketball game in more than two months, the 2021 forward received four new scholarship offers in the span of a week, with the most recent coming from Missouri. The Tigers joined Texas A&M, TCU and Houston as the only high-major teams to extend Landers an offer.

Instead, Curro is more amazed that it took this long for Landers to start getting noticed.

“If he were to walk out on the grassroots circuit as a starter on the EYBL team with Phenom University, he would have walked out of this summer with 25 to 30 offers and probably every high-major school,” said Curro, Landers’ coach for Phenom University. “... He’d be an absolute steal.”

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Class of 2021 forward Logan Landers picked up an offer from Missouri last week.
Class of 2021 forward Logan Landers picked up an offer from Missouri last week.

Landers declined to do an interview, but both Curro and Nick Mueller, Landers’ coach at Cedarburg high school in Wisconsin, raved about his versatility and athleticism. The 6-foot-10 forward can certainly overpower most defenders in the low post, but he doesn’t spend all of his time there. Curro and Mueller said Landers can spread the floor with his three-point shooting and take larger defenders off the bounce. Curro also described him as a good passer. They said Landers projects as a stretch four or five on the offensive end, while his athleticism allows him to guard the three through five spots.

Both coaches also made a point to bring up Landers’ grit and tenacity. His skillset may allow him to play with some finesse, but he’s not going to back down from a physical challenge, either. Curro called him a “double-figure rebounder, game in and game out.”

“He is a kid that plays with that kind of nastiness that most coaches really enjoy to see,” Mueller said. “He’s not going to back down from anybody. So again, at the end of the day, I think there’s how many 6-10 kids in the nation that are being recruited right now? I think what’s going to separate him, on top of his versatility, is that intangible of playing with that chip on his shoulder and having that edge.”

After talking with Landers’ coaches, it becomes easy to see why Curro thinks Landers should have been receiving more high-major attention. But there is an explanation. Through his junior year of high school, Landers split time between basketball and baseball, and the high school baseball season coincided with part of the AAU basketball schedule. This spring would have been his first playing only hoops, but the grassroots circuits have been shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result of devoting so much time to baseball, Curro acknowledged that Landers isn’t the most polished prospect, but he believes his sheer size and athleticism give him an extremely high upside.

“I’d be surprised if there’s another kid in the country like him at 6-10, with the skillset, with the versatility, with the ceiling that he has,” Curro said.

That upside has been enough to lure in a few high-major college coaches. Curro said he spoke with Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin a few times before the Tigers offered Landers, so he wasn’t at all surprised by the offer. Landers would seem to fit the mold of what Martin Is looking for in a frontcourt player in the 2021 class. Last week, the Tigers extended offers to Legend Geeter and James Graham Jr., both of whom, like Landers, possess shooting and ball-handling ability to go along with the size of a typical forward.

Based on his conversations with other coaches, Curro believes more offers could be coming soon for Landers. He also said that, while Landers could probably accrue more offers by delaying his college decision until after the high school season, Landers isn’t the type to be worried about his number of offers. His recruiting timeline will depend on how quickly he finds the right fit.

“At the end of the day I think it’s going to be whoever builds a quality relationship with Logan, with his father, his family,” Curro said. “And also at the same time it’s just kind of a feel. So if he wants to get off the board early, he can, if he wants to wait, he can.”

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