Recruiting

Luke Kennard enjoys productive camp, unofficial visit at Michigan

slideshow_1002300601_121711_Franklin02[1]Luke Kennard has had a breakout summer during the early part of the AAU season, and he continued to impress at Michigan’s team camp last weekend. Kennard was the most dominant player at Michigan’s Team Camp, flirting with 40 points regularly while carrying Franklin to the semifinals of the event.

Kennard has never been much of a secret. John Beilein traveled down to Franklin, Ohio in January to watch Kennard, just a freshman at the time, play. However, Kennard’s recruitment continues to expand this spring and summer. He’s added an offer from Ohio State – to go along with previous offers from Xavier, Dayton, West Virginia and Miami (OH). He’s also taken recent visits to Indiana and Louisville before traveling to Michigan last weekend for an unofficial visit on Thursday followed by Team Camp on Friday and Saturday.

Luke, and his father Mark, both took the time to discuss the trip to Ann Arbor.

The visit began at the Player Development Center, which Luke said was very impressive.

“The facilities are amazing,” Luke said. “All the new stuff that they have, and they’re still building new stuff — it’s hard to see what else they could build.”

Mark and Luke met with the coaching staff, who Mark described as “first-class people”, at the PDC before going downtown to get something to eat and take a tour of campus. They both came away extremely impressed with the whole staff.

“They are absolutely amazing. I love each and every one of them and they make me feel right at home, which I love about them,” Luke said. “They tell me I fit in with how they play, and I think I do, too. Like I said, I look forward to going to see them because that’s how much I like seeing them. It was good to see them.”

As far as what Luke spoke with the coaching staff about, he said it was mostly about school and the remainder of the AAU season. However, Luke mentioned the coaches also broke down film with him, discussing how he’d fit in the Michigan offense.

“We watched some video where they went over certain stuff like driving and kicking, pushing the ball, looking up the floor. They said they think I do well with that stuff,” Luke said. “When we went out to eat, it was normal stuff like school, AAU ball, just random stuff. That’s what we talked about most of the time.”

Mark said the coaches told Luke they would be watching his progress closely the rest of the summer. The NCAA Live Evaluation period picks up again in July with evaluation periods running July 11th-15th, 18th-22nd and 25th-29th.

After the visit was over, Luke got down to business at Michigan’s team camp. The talented wing used his versatile skill set to dominate most of the action and lead his new high school team to the semifinals despite missing a key guard, forcing Kennard to spend additional time at the point guard position. By all accounts, he was by far the most impressive player at the camp.

Mark said Luke came into camp well-rested and well-prepared, and it showed.

“I think it went great. Our team, we played well together,” Luke said. “It was our first real tournament playing together and we played great together. I think I played pretty well. It was fun and I think the coaches liked how everything went.”

Luke said he has been working very hard this summer on his shooting and ballhandling, which has made him a threat from nearly anywhere on the floor. He has also hit the weight room whenever he can in order to put on muscle in preparation for the remainder of AAU ball, where Kennard’s 15U AAU team has played up an age level throughout the summer, as well as his high school football season this fall. Kennard, a quarterback, recently attended Ohio State’s football camp in Columbus.

Luke’s play this summer has piqued the interest of many big-time schools. As the AAU season rolls on and Luke continues to attract more attention, Mark believes it’s important for Luke to remain humble and keep perspective.

“We tell him that all the time, that he hasn’t arrived yet,” Mark said. “His high school coach works with him quite a bit, and we just try to get him better. Hopefully, we’re getting there.”

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