For two years we listened patiently and nodded as basketball phenom Emoni Bates — and his father, E.J. — told us he was not going anywhere.
The youngster, who became the first sophomore to be named the Gatorade national player of the year, was going to play his four years at Ypsilanti Lincoln and would not reclassify into another graduating class.
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His father insisted there was no reason to attend any school other than Lincoln because his 6-foot-9 son, who averaged 31.6 points and nine rebounds as a sophomore and led Lincoln to the Division 1 state championship as a freshman, got all of the top-flight competition he wanted every summer.
They sounded so convincing we wanted to believe them. Two more state tournament runs with the best player in the country leading Lincoln seemed too good to be true.
It turns out it was.
Everything changed Monday when Bates committed to Michigan State basketball, and it turns out that wasn’t the biggest news of the day.
Sitting for an interview with ESPN, Bates wore an Ypsilanti Prep Academy shirt, which will be his new school this fall.
And when we say new, we mean brand new. But more on that later.
Even more newsworthy is Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg reported that Bates will indeed reclassify into the Class of 2021 and graduate at the end of the upcoming school year.
That will allow Bates to enroll at MSU in the fall of 2021 and be prepared to be chosen in the 2022 NBA draft, if the NBA changes its draft eligibility age requirement. If it doesn’t, Bates could play two seasons at MSU, leave for the G League after one year in East Lansing or play overseas before entering the NBA.
The intriguing scenario here is the high school aspect of this. How do you make a school appear out of thin air?
It turns out E.J. will open an Ypsilanti satellite campus of Aim High Academy, which has a home campus in Cement City, near Jackson.
“It’s been in the making for quite some time,” E.J. told WXYZ-TV’s Brad Galli. “Trying to do something unprecedented in the state of Michigan that really hasn’t been done.”
The reason for playing at a prep school is to enable Bates to play against some of the top players in the country at other prep schools.
“I’ve been playing against people that I grew up with and stuff like that,” Bates said on ESPN. “So I want to play against people across the world and show my true talent; that I can play with anybody.”
The plan could include games against other high-profile prep schools that could be held at Eastern Michigan, which hosted several Lincoln games last season, or even at MSU.
“I just think it’s time to be in a situation where he can continue to grow and develop,” his father told ESPN, “and also be around like-minded individuals who aspire to play on a higher level, that’s committed in the gym, and can also challenge him every day in practice.”
Assembling a roster for Ypsi Prep Academy was the easy part. E.J., who will also coach the team like he did for the Bates Fundamentals AAU team, began by recruiting many of his son’s AAU teammates.
Last season, Orlando Lovejoy played for Romulus Summit Academy North and the 6-foot- 2 junior would like to play alongside Bates.
“I’m really excited, but as of right now my parents are still finalizing the details on whether or not they want me to attend this school,” he said. “We haven’t enrolled in Ypsi Prep and I haven’t disenrolled from Summit yet.”
The appeal to play with Bates is obvious to Lovejoy. Not only will there be a challenging schedule, but the practices should be dynamite.
“It’s the chance to play against the best people around the world,” he said. “Steel sharpens steel.”
According to Lovejoy, the list of players already committed to playing with Bates at Ypsi Prep include: 2021 four-star point guard Jaden Akins of Farmington; 2022 four-star shooting guard Dillon Hunter of Atlanta; 2022 point guard JaVaughn Hannah of Mt. Clemens; 2022 forward Genesis Kemp of Grand Rapids Catholic Central and 2022 four-star Shawn Phillips of Dayton, among others. According to Sports Illustrated, 2023 forward John McCrear of Ypsilanti Lincoln also is included.
Bates is the No. 1 player in the country because he combines overwhelming size with the finesse and agility of a guard. He is strictly a perimeter player and floats around the 3-point line, from where he is remarkably accurate for a player his size.
I saw four of his last five games at Lincoln before the season was abruptly ended before the district final because of the coronavirus pandemic, and not once did he line up anywhere near the post area.
But to Lovejoy, Bates is much more than a big guy with skills.
“People think it’s because he’s tall and he’s a guard — no!” Lovejoy said. “Emoni’s mindset is different. I’ve never met anybody that thinks like Emoni. Emoni cuts the head off an ant. Emoni is really aggressive. Emoni’s different mentally; that’s what makes him the best.”
It is possible for Bates’ new school to play against some high schools in Michigan, but he will not participate in the state tournament again and he won’t be a candidate for the Hal Schram Mr. Basketball award.
In one afternoon, Bates transformed into Josh Jackson, the star who led Detroit Consortium to the 2014 Class C state championship as a sophomore and then left to play for Prolific Prep in Napa, California.
Bates is staying in the state, but it won’t be the same.
Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1
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