The Caleb Houstan Blog: Convos with Coach K, New Offers, Lil Baby and More

Houstan picked up new offers from Duke, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan State and Arizona.

Caleb Houstan is an SI All-American nominee and one of the top shooting guards in the country, regardless of class. This season, the 6-foot-8.5 sophomore was an intricate part of what some were saying could be the best high school team ever; Monteverde (Fla.) Academy finished No. 1 in the country and undefeated. Houstan led the U16 Canadian National Team last summer, averaging 22.8 points a game, and has everyone from Gonzaga to Oregon to Virginia, among many others all giving chase. Now, he’s agreed to give SI All-American exclusive access into his world by chronicling everything from intimate details about his recruitment to his everyday life in a blog.

Hey guys, what’s up Caleb Houstan here back with my Sports Illustrated blog!

A lot has changed since my last blog as far as my recruiting because as of June 15 college coaches can call 2022 players like myself directly.

I had heard a lot about that date from other players, so I was excited going into it and it was a lot of fun. I heard from schools like Duke, Alabama, Arkansas, Gonzaga, Michigan State and Arizona and they all offered me. It was my first time talking to all of the coaches and it was great just getting to know them and getting to know more about the schools.

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For example, just talking to Coach K about how he started coaching at West Point was interesting to me. I didn’t know that he started there so just to hear about his journey over the last 40 years was cool. I like things like that.

I would say that the most interesting thing I learned was how early the college basketball players report to campus. I didn’t know they went to do the summer classes and training and things like that.

They’re working hard right after they graduate, so that was cool to learn.

The coaches reach out to me and my parents regularly now but it hasn’t gotten to be too much; I think it’s going great because we’re building those relationships and learning more and more about the schools.

My training is going good now that they opened the gym to four days a week.

I got to get some runs in with some of the guys on my AAU team so that was fun. I hadn’t done that since I was at Montverde.

It was good to get back out there; I played better than I thought I would just because I hadn’t been playing against anyone this whole time. That game speed is hard to simulate, but we had fun and we’re getting better.

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I’m still hoping that we may get at least one AAU weekend in this summer. I know we all have to be careful with COVID-19, but I’m hoping things get better so we can get a chance to show what we’ve been working on.  

We’ve added a few more pieces to the squad at Montverde for next season and I’m excited about that too. I feel like we’re gonna have a lot of talent and I can’t wait to get to work with those guys so we can work on doing something great next season.

I’m finally finished with school and it feels good to have that work out of the way. I finished on the honor roll so I’m proud of that.

I’ve been playing a lot of Fortnite lately with my friends. I’ve definitely been getting a lot of dubs on that! I’m looking forward to NBA 2K too!

Other than that, I’ve been going for a lot more bike rides with my brother just to get out more. That’s a newer thing for me, but I’m liking it now that I’ve started. I only do about five miles a day, but it’s a good way to get outside.

Music-wise, I'm looking forward to Drake's "Summer" album and I’m listening to Lil’ Baby’s “The Bigger Picture” a lot now with everything going on. It’s really something that’s talking about what’s going on in the world right now.

I just feel like this is a good time for everyone to reflect on what they can do to be better.

We all have to come together to make the world a better place, and it’s really going to take everyone to think about how things effect other people and make change.

OK, guys that’s it for this blog, as always, I appreciate you reading. Stay safe and I’ll catch you later.