NEWARK, NJ—Drew Onyebuchi, a power forward from Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston, will continue his basketball and academic career at NJIT, head coach Jim Engles announced.
A 2010 graduate of Travis High School in Richmond, TX, Onyebuchi, 6-6, 190, signed a National Letter of Intent with the Highlanders and will begin his college basketball career in the upcoming 2010-11 season.
Onyebuchi, who was injured for part of his senior year in high school, was nonetheless regarded as one of the top players in the Greater Houston area, which is a hotbed for young basketball talent.
One recruiting web site, houstonpreps.net, ranked him 30th in the Houston area Class of 2010, and another, rcssports.com, listed him 32nd among Greater Houston seniors.
Hoop Scoop Online rated him 83rd in the state of Texas Class of 2010, while Texas Roundball.com rated him 95th among Lone Star seniors.
ESPN U's basketball recruiting site assigned him a 72 rating on its scale of 100. That places him in the lower part of its third-highest grouping of college prospects as a player who can “contribute significantly as a freshman at the mid-major level”.
Travis was 25-10 and advanced to the second round of the state playoffs in his junior year when he averaged about 8 points, 8 rebounds and two blocks per game.
As a senior, Drew helped lead Travis (22-10) back to the playoffs, despite the 2009 graduation of Ray Penn, who started 15 games for Oklahoma State as a freshman last season. Onyebuchi's last game was a 71-69 overtime loss to top-ranked Bellaire (35-1 at the time) in the Region III-5A semifinal.
Onyebuchi, who averaged around 12 points and 10 rebounds as a senior and was named all-area by the Fort Bend Herald, added another honor when, in early May this year, he played in the Houston Area Basketball Coaches All-Star Game as a member of the South team.
Winner of all-academic accolades, he plans to major in business at NJIT.
“Drew is tough and skilled and he comes from a high school program that ran the Princeton offense, so he will come in understanding our system,” said Engles. “He's a very good passer, which is critical in what we do. He's an undersized power forward, but we expect him to balance that with his positive attributes of toughness, athleticism, and feel for the game.”
Another area of familiarity for Onyebuchi will be playing as part of building program. His three years of varsity basketball were the first three years his high school had a varsity team.
At NJIT, he joins a program that began facing Division I competition in 2006-07 and achieved full Division I status in 2009-10, a season that saw it post a program-best 10 wins at the highest level.
The Highlanders, who will enter their third year under Engles' tutelage, hope to continue the strides they made last season, when they improved to 10 wins from one in 2008-09 and stepped up their scoring to 61.5 ppg from 49.5 ppg.
Looking ahead, Onyebuchi and his fellow newcomers will join returning players who accounted for 1710 of last season's 1905 points scored (90 percent). Returnees for 2010-11 also accounted for 882 of last season's 1064 rebounds (83 percent).
