By Andy Amey
Kevin McKenna’s weekend got a little nicer Saturday night, when the Indiana State basketball coach got a telephone call and a verbal commitment from Jake Kitchell.
Kitchell, soon to be a four-year starter for South Central (Union Mills), will be a first-team all-state selection of Hoosier Basketball Magazine for a second consecutive year, publisher Gary Donna confirmed Sunday evening, and will also be one of the players pictured on the magazine’s cover.
He’s 6-foot-8 — “That’s barefoot,” Kitchell said in a telephone interview Sunday. “You play in your shoes, so some people say I’m 6-9, but I always say 6-8” — and 225 pounds, and averaged 20 points, 14 rebounds, six assists and six blocks per game for a team that was 17-5 during the 2008-2009 high school season.
The Sycamore recruit anticipates that he’ll be used at either forward position for Indiana State.
“Whatever the team needs,” Kitchell said. “In high school, you’ve got to do more to help the team … but my AAU team [SYF from Gary] had bigger guys, so I played more outside.”
If that sounds like the description of a very recent Sycamore, it wouldn’t be the first time the comparison has been made.
“The coaches [at Indiana State] showed me video of [2009 ISU graduate] Jay Tunnell, and they said they thought I could be that kind of player,” Kitchell said Sunday. “I thought that was great, because Jay was a great player.”
Kitchell said he was most proud of his assists totals last season.
“A lot of them were from perimeter passing, and some were out of the post,” he explained. “In [Class] A I get double- and triple-teamed a lot, so that left a lot of other guys open for layups.”
Although he’s from a small school that hasn’t won a sectional during his three seasons as a starter, that doesn’t mean Kitchell — a member of the Indiana Junior All-Stars during the past spring — hasn’t faced tough competition.
“Every year I’ve been in the sectional the team that won our sectional has either won the state [Oregon-Davis in 2007, Triton in 2008] or got to the state finals [Triton in 2009],” Kitchell said.
With four starters back for South Central’s Satellites and a couple of newcomers on the team, “We’re hoping to add to that stat [ourselves] this year,” he added.
Indiana State came out ahead of Western Michigan and Valparaiso in Kitchell’s recruitment, the player said Sunday. Other schools involved in his recruitment earlier were Ball State, Oregon State and Xavier.
Kitchell can sign his national letter of intent in early November.
