By ADAM ZAGORIA
Boogie Fland is closing in on a college decision and says it could be coming in the next “week” or “month.”
The five-star point guard from Archbishop Stepinac (N.Y.) and the PSA Cardinals is down to Kentucky, Indiana and Alabama, with the head coaches of all three schools having come in to see him recently.
“It could be in the next week, next couple days, next three weeks, next month, who knows? But stay tuned,” the 6-foot-3 Fland told Krysten Peek at the USA Basketball mini-camp in Colorado Springs last weekend.
When will he know what he wants to do?
“I feel like it’s going to be within myself,” he said. “My circle, they were telling me that, ‘The feel, you’ll feel it.’ And I just feel like the final decision, I’ll feel it in my heart.”
The NCAA Early Signing period runs Nov. 8-15.
While some prospects wait until the spring in order to see both how the teams recruiting them manifest their styles and how the rosters of those teams shake out, Fland gave a shrewd answer when asked if he wanted to wait.
“Do you really know?” he asked. “You could commit the last day of when you could commit and the roster could change like that, so you really don’t know. You’re taking a risk. And you just hope that risk is the great one, basically.”
In the era of the Transfer Portal and NIL, he’s absolutely right. Rosters are in constant flux and there’s no ideal time to commit.
Fland also gave a very insightful answer as to what he hopes to show NBA scouts and other decision-makers about his style of play.
“That I’m a leader and that I can stand out when I’m playing with good players,” he said. “I feel like when you’re playing with other good players, you’re mindset is to score, do this, do that, just to stand out.
“But I feel there’s more to basketball than just scoring, just getting everybody involved, making sure you’re a good teammate, helping, clapping, doing the little things because that’s what they’re looking for because when you go to the NBA, are you going to be the one scoring or is there somebody already there that’s going to be doing the scoring? So you gotta do something different.”
Don Showalter, the USA Basketball youth coach, told ZAGSBLOG that Fland doesn’t just talk the talk. He walks it, too.
“He was great,” he said. “I love the way he plays — he’s a great teammate.”
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