Gophers get commitment from 5-star center Dennis Evans
Seven-footer Dennis Evans, one of the top high school basketball recruits in the country, has picked the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Evans, rated a 4- or- 5-star recruit by all of the major recruiting services, was deciding between Minnesota and TCU. He announced the Gophers as he choice on Instagram at 6 p.m. Monday.
"I used to get dunked on. Now I dunk on people," Evans said in his announcement. "I'm pretty good at blocking shots. I like to go fishing. My favorite food is Subway."
Evans, who is 7-foot-1 and averaged 11 points, 10 rebounds and seven blocks per game as a junior at Riverside Hillcrest in California, is rated 13th nationally in the Class of 2023 by Rivals, 27th by 247Sports, 28th by PrepHoops, 61st by ESPN and 35th by On3.
He's the highest-rated recruit for the Gophers since Kris Humphries, who was Rivals' No. 13 player in the Class of 2003.
Head coach Ben Johnson's 2023 recruiting class includes Evans and 4-star guard Cameron Christie, who is the No. 1 player in Illinois. Christie is the younger brother of Los Angeles Lakers rookie Max Christie. Max was a 5-star recruit who played one year at Michigan State before entering the NBA Draft.
The Gophers men's basketball team in a position to land a 5-star recruit," said Wolfson, noting that Johnson and his staff went to California for a "final pitch" to Evans last Thursday.
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Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.