Gators Offer Dynamic Freshman Shooting Guard Jaden Hardy
It is incredibly early in evaluating prospects in the freshman class, in fact Rivals has not yet released its initial ranking of the class yet, but last night Florida extended only its second known offer to a prospect in the 2021 class.
That prospect is Jaden Hardy of Coronado High School in Henderson, NV.
Hardy, who already held offers from Florida State, Georgia Tech, TCU and UNLV, was named to the American Family Insurance All-USA Nevada Boys Basketball Team. He was the only freshman to receive the honor.
A Detroit native, Hardy averaged 24 points per game during his freshman season for Coronado. He will run with Las Vegas Prospects 17U team in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) and looks to be the third scoring option for that team behind five-star class of 2020 stud Julian Strawther – who also holds an offer from Florida – and Jalen Hill.
GatorsTerritory.com has only watched one of Hardy once and it was in his first ever high school game this past November. In a hard fought one point victory Hardy scored 29 of his team’s 59 points on 9-of-15 shooting (5-of-8 beyond the arc), he grabbed eight rebounds plus had an assist, a block and a steal. The downside was five turnovers, but we are still talking about a freshman playing in his first high school game.
Hardy is a shot maker who put on an elite catch-and-shoot performance while we watched. He hit three consecutive three-pointers off the catch before missing. Hardy made open shots and over a hand, he has range to the NBA three-point line and used good body control to score through traffic to finish with either hand at the rim.
The 6-foot-4, 185-pounder has great size and length and possess a game that is more advanced than his age. Coronado used a 2-3 zone so we were unable to evaluate Hardy’s on-ball defense but he was active in their zone and hustled for a chase down block in transition after a turnover.
We expect Hardy, whose older brother Amauri just finished his freshman season at UNLV, to collect quite a few offers this travel season, which starts in earnest on Friday. So it was a good move by the Gators to offer now before the rush.
