You need to know the name because this freshman might burst onto the scene as a star with Richard Pitino’s Gophers basketball team.
Isaiah Washington, a point guard whom we profiled as the best point guard out of New York City since Kemba Walker, was featured by Vice Sports in a video released Friday, profiling his status as the biggest high school hoops star to stay in Harlem in a long time.
“The family culture out here, everybody loves you,” Washington said in a Gophers video that asked why he picked Minnesota. “I think they’re going to push me to the next level, and the next level is to be an NBA pro.”
Washington is already dazzling in Twin Cities summer pro am games, and there’s a good chance he does the same in the Big Ten next fall and winter. As a point guard, Washington’s primary competition for playing time will be Nate Mason, a senior fresh off a junior season in which he was named First Team All-Big Ten.
“It’s just all about getting better and we’re all trying to do that. You can’t get complacent. What type of dimension will you add going into your senior year,” Pitino said of Mason during a recent appearance on the One Hunnit Podcast. “You had a really good junior year, you’ve progressed and gotten better – you should be proud of that. What’s the next step for you, how are you going to evolve as a player?”
If Washington lives up to the hype the Gophers will arguably have the most potent 1-2 punch at point guard in the Big Ten.
