6/21/2017 basketball Edit

New in-state name to know: Luke Anderson

Russ Wood

Inside the Gators

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Coach Mike White and his staff continue to bring new names onto the Florida recruiting board in the 2019 class – as expected. Lakeland High School rising junior Luke Anderson is one of the latest in-state products to catch the Gators attention.

Anderson, an E1T1 United 16U teammate of Tre Mann, has averaged 13.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 47 percent from the field, including 28-of-67 beyond the arc (41.8 percent) in the Nike EYBL. It’s a sure bet that while the Gators coaches were watching E1T1 United in April to monitor the progress of Mann and former teammate C.J. Walker, they took notice of Anderson’s play – despite his playing out of position.

Since Walker left E1T1 Anderson has been able to move out of the post and play power forward, a more natural position for him.

“I’m a 3/4 at heart I’m not a five,” Anderson said. “I was buried under the post and I didn’t like playing it but now at least I’m getting to stretch out and play some of the wing. That’s also letting me showcase my ball handling a little bit more. Like Monday, I played point against Winter Haven (in a summer league game) because two of our point guards were out and had eight assists.”

The 6-foot-8, 212-pounder is a balanced scorer, creating offense on all three levels. Of Anderson’s 174 field goal attempts in EYBL play, 67 field goal attempts were within five feet of the basket, 67 were three-point attempts and 43 were mid-range shots according to Krossover.com.

Thursday morning Anderson will leave for St. Louis to participate in the annual Nike Elite 100 Camp. The rising junior talked about his preparation for the event.

“I’ve been shooting a lot,” he said. “I’ve been shooting a lot of midrange and working on my form to keep my form and my shot right. I worked a lot on legs this week to get my legs right for this week. Usually whenever I work on my legs I have bounce after a day or two later.”

Lakeland was scheduled to play in Florida’s Team Camp last weekend but pulled out at the last minute. Depriving their best player of an opportunity to play in front of, and later possibly sit down and talk with, Mike White and his coaching staff. Something Anderson has yet to get over.

“I felt let down,” said Anderson, sounding dejected. “Supposedly they had me on a list to go watch or something like that. We had five players and one of them was on the way, so we still could have played. I felt good that day. I still worked out that day for like three hours and I was really shooting the ball good that day. I just felt like I would have done really good and it was just was a disappointment to me that we couldn’t go. I just feel like if Florida saw me they’d feel a different way, it just sucked that they couldn’t see me.”

The son of a basketball coach, Anderson has an advanced basketball IQ to go along with a great frame. If he isn’t shooting well, he finds other ways to impact the game. Anderson has good court awareness and is a very good passer including while on the move, to set up teammates.

Currently Anderson holds offers from Arkansas State, Florida Gulf Coast, Florida International, North Florida and Old Dominion. Since last Friday Anderson said he has heard from Iowa State, Wyoming, St. Joe’s, UCF and USF and others.

The quantity of offers is not important to the down to earth Lakeland native. Anderson is just hoping to get an offer from a college that really wants him and is a good fit. So what would an offer from Florida mean to him and his recruitment?

“That would open up a whole new thing,” said Anderson. “I mean, I have posters of Florida in my room. Like I’ve always been a Florida Gator fan since I was young. I used to love their basketball and football team. Chris Richard…he used to train me. My dad used to coach him back in high school and he worked for my dad. So I’ve always have been a Florida fan since I was growing up so that would be a whole new level for me.

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