RECRUITING

North Central's Wilkes puts recruiting on backburner

Kyle Neddenriep
IndyStar
North Central High School sophomore Kris Wilkes (31) brings the ball up court during the first half of action. Lawrence North High School hosted North Central High School in a first-round game of the 2015 Marion County Boys Basketball Tournament, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015.

North Central junior Kris Wilkes is one of the top basketball recruits in the country.

But unlike many of those top prospects, the 6-8 Wilkes doesn't plan to make a lot of college visits during the season. Wilkes, ranked No. 12 nationally in the 2017 class by Scout, is set on leading his North Central team to a big season.

Wilkes got to a good start last week in the season opener, finishing with 28 points on 12-for-14 shooting in a 128-41 runaway win over Metropolitan.

"We've got a lot of height and everybody has the ability to score," said Wilkes, who averaged 17.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and shot 58 percent last season. "My goal every game is to win the game and get the team involved."

Purdue assistant Jack Owens was in to watch Wilkes is his season opener. Purdue was one of the first schools to offer Wilkes, along with Indiana. Other programs that have offered are Butler, Kansas, Illinois, Maryland, UCLA, Vanderbilt and Xavier.

Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio State and Stanford are among a list of other programs with a high level of interest in Wilkes. But the talented forward said recruiting is on the backburner for now.

"I'm not going to college right now," he said. "I'm working on school ball, trying to get wins. When it comes toward the end of the season, I'll start looking at it a little more."

North Central coach Doug Mitchell isn't shy about setting the bar high when it comes to Wilkes.

"It's about having a consistent level of intensity throughout day-to-day practice," Mitchell said. "He always comes to the games and he's done a better job of doing that in practice. If he continues to practice like he plays, the sky is the limit. Why wouldn't you want to be Kevin Durant. (Durant) might be two inches taller, but let's go see what you can do. He's a neat kid."

Wilkes' most-recent visits were in October to Indiana's "Hoosier Hysteria" and Kentucky's "Big Blue Madness."

"It was fun," Wilkes said of the visits. "I hadn't been to (Kentucky) before so it was pretty nice to get there."

Wilkes said his next visits could be to Ohio State and Michigan, but doesn't have a timetable set for any visits at this point. North Central plays at Richmond on Friday and hosts Hamilton Heights on Saturday.