Kris Wilkes has an eventful summer on his hands.
The 6-foot-7 small forward from Indianapolis (IN) North Central is currently at the USA Basketball Men’s U18 National Team training camp in Colorado Springs., Co., where he hopes to make the final 12-member team that will compete in the FIBA Americas U18 Championship July 19-23 in Valdivia, Chile.
He will also compete at the Steph Curry SC30 Select Camp later this summer as well as on the Under Armour circuit with the Indy Hoosiers.
“It’s definitely an honor,” Wilkes said by phone from the U18 camp, where he made the first cut to 18 players on Thursday. “There’s a lot of top players out there. To win that gold medal, it’s something that a lot of people want to do and not everyone has a chance to do. It’s definitely an honor.”
Wilkes said some of the bigger guys like 6-9 Michael Porter Jr., are the toughest to handle in camp.
“Mike and the bigger guys,” he said. “They’re just bigger than me but it’s a challenge.”
On the recruiting front, things continue to heat up for Wilkes, who recently added offers from Michigan, Ohio State and Washington. He picked up offers from Michigan and Ohio State while on official visits there.
As for Ohio State, “Ohio State, not saying that I don’t care about how far away from home it is, because a lot my fans can go down there. Just meeting with the coach [Thad Matta], I haven’t ever talked to him in person so it was good to meet him in person and get to know him and just build a relationship with him.”
On Michigan: “It’s a different staff than what recruited me before. So it was good to meet them in person and get to know them a little more. [Coach John] Beilein came down to visit during the school year, so I’m geting to learn more about the staff and about the campus.”
Home state Indiana is also strongly in the mix.
“Yeah, I talk to them almost every day,” Wlikes said. “I talk to different people. They just told me to keep working hard and show me more about the campus and I’m getting to know them.”
Wilkes visited Kentucky last year for Big Blue Madness and enjoyed it but has yet to reel in a Kentucky offer.
“It was pretty good,” he said. “It was definitely a packed full house. It’s a lot of excitement down there, a lot of fans, a lot of support.”
He said he’d love to get a Kentucky offer but isn’t overly worried about it.
“No, they haven’t. If they do it would be great,” he said. “I’m not saying that I wouldn’t love it but I’m not going to sit here and say I’m waiting on a Kentucky offer but that would be great if they offered.”
He also wants to visit a certain Pac-12 school.
“I think the next place I want to take an official visit is to UCLA because they offered me a long time ago and I still haven’t had a chance to get out there,” he said. “We are scheduling dates around this summer ball that I have going on. So I think it depends on what goes on here at USA.”
Wilkes plans to cut his list later this summer, keeping only schools that have offered him.
“Yeah, I’m definitely going to cut it at the end of the summer,” he said. “The people that haven’t offered me, I’m just going to cut it off right there and keep it to the people that have offered me.”
