Rollins’ Commitment Caps Flurry of Offers

East English Village senior point guard Chris Rollins, at his future home IPFW.

Mastodons could reach nearly basket height and weighed up to five tons. Chris Rollins is 5-10, 140. But his heart is mammoth sized which helped give him the chance to rep the Mastodons of IPFW, where the Detroit East English Village senior point guard committed Sunday. That came after another at times dominating camp performance by EEV, at Oakland, where Rollins gets it rolling a great brand of fast, unselfish ball. His is tempered aggression on both ends of the floor. Rollins is an embarrassment of point guard cliches, but the overall theme is, his teams win. Detroit Showtime has been the most consistently successful team in their age group for years with Rollins in the lineup along with other D1 basketball recruits EEV teammate Karmari Newman and former Warren De La Salle teammate Kevin McKay. It’s been a good recruiting season for small point guard, with Rollins joining Detroit Western’s 5-9 Brailen Neely who is pledged to Oakland, and Haslett’s Brandon Allen who is 5-9 with an offer from Long Beach State.

Oakland offered a couple of players this weekend. The Gospels say no prophet finds honor in his hometown. So it seemed to play out with Rochester Adams’ 6-3 senior Spencer Littleson, who emerged a year ago as a D1 prospect at a school just a couple miles from Oakland’s campus. His first offer came in the spring from St. Joseph’s, and now Littleson finds Oakland on board after he held his own against the best guards their team camp had to offer. Not just an unrepentant scorer, the Grizzlies envision him seeing time at point guard too. Behind Cassius Winston he’s as, if not more, consistent than the other guards in the seniors class and could have double-digit offers by the end of July.

Oakland’s other offer was to Jamal Cain. It was a busy weekend for the 6-6 top 10 junior from Detroit Cornerstone, who also received an offer Sunday at Kent State’s elite camp. He’s a rare finisher with hands, balance and smooth steps,  a Jason Morehead like swooping wing who could end up the next Vincent Hunter out of the Detroit Stars program.

Another junior with an Oakland offer is 6-9 Jaron Faulds from Holt. His second came from Central Michigan last Thursday. No big man puts it all together quite as often as Faulds, which is why he’ll get significant high major looks the next two summers. He played well at Oakland’s camp, as did 6-3 Lowell junior Matt Beachler. The Grizzlies are one of four offers to date. He made six three-pointers in a game watched by Oakland coach Greg Kampe.

6-7 senior Danny Pippen produced inside and outside both offensively and defensively for Detroit Allen at Oakland’s camp. He earned an offer Friday from Northern Kentucky.

Like Cain a 2017 prospect who received his first offer was Darian Owens-White. A 6-0 junior point guard from River Rouge, his came from Toledo following his performance Sunday at their prospects’ camp.