Chittenango, N.Y. \u2014 If Ryan Moesch is any kind of litmus test, good high school basketball players these days are walking a taut tightrope to determine their athletic futures. <\/p>\n
Moesch, a Chittenango native slotted at No. 204 in On3.com\u2019s Class of 2026 composite evaluation, is the highest-ranked high school basketball prospect in Central New York these days. The 247sports staff considers him a four-star player and ranks him 137th in his class.<\/p>\n
Moesch holds 24 Division I offers, ranging from Le Moyne, his first offer, to Providence, one of his most recent offers. <\/p>\n
Schools such as Syracuse, Creighton, Seton Hall and Iowa, he said, have kept tabs on him.<\/p>\n
He has appeared on plenty of \u201cbest of\u201d summer circuit lists. His flair for the dramatic, the twisty way he can score at the rim, his passion and his ability to impact games with his passing and scoring count as his most alluring attributes.<\/p>\n
His AAU coach considers him one of the top two or three players he\u2019s ever coached. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had some great, great guards at that spot,\u201d Middlesex Magic coach Michael Crotty said. \u201cBut he\u2019s as good as any of them and I think he\u2019s going to become America\u2019s darling at some point in his career. They\u2019re going to be watching him on TV and watching him take his team to heights that people probably didn\u2019t expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRyan Moesch,\u201d said his Cushing Academy coach James Cormier, \u201cmakes everyone else around him better.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the way the college basketball landscape has shifted in recent years, though, Moesch has been uncertain about how to process and proceed. <\/p>\n
Should he choose a lower-level program, like a Siena, where he\u2019s likely to earn playing time as a freshman? Or should he pick Providence, the only true high-major to offer him thus far? <\/p>\n
Should he choose a school this fall to lock in a destination? Or should he nervously wait until the spring, see how rosters shake out in the transfer portal and then pick the program most in need of someone with his skill set?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, like, everything will figure itself out,\u201d Moesch said a couple months ago during a conversation in Chittenango, his hometown. \u201cI think I\u2019ll go to a good spot, for sure. But it\u2019s definitely stressful. I\u2019d say it\u2019s super stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The way programs now prioritize college-ready transfers, coupled with the recent flood of overseas players infiltrating college basketball, makes high school prospects less coveted commodities than they were a few years ago.<\/p>\n
The number of overseas athletes competing in Division I men\u2019s basketball has more than doubled from 2009-10 (406) to 2024-25 (888) mostly because those athletes can now make as much or more playing in the United States as they would in their home countries. <\/p>\n
Syracuse basketball coaches said they saw fewer complete staffs on the traditional spring and summer recruiting hotbeds. College coaches used to churn the recruiting pool after their seasons ended, but now they focus on retaining key players on their own rosters and supplementing them in the ever-important transfer portal. <\/p>\n
By the time Crotty saw college coaches in May, he said, they looked exhausted.<\/p>\n
College coaches are feeling the pressure from their administrators and from boosters to win now. And those coaches tend to rely more on older, more mature, more experienced players at the expense of good high school talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone\u2019s being really specific, really particular. If you get them, great. If you don\u2019t get them, it\u2019s not the end of the world,\u201d said one college basketball general manager. \u201cBut as always, it\u2019s a good time to be an elite player.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what if you are a 6-foot, 170-pound point guard with tantalizing skills, a lot of moxie, but less than ideal size? <\/p>\n
Moesch reclassed from 2025 to 2026 to improve his body and earn more exposure on the AAU and prep school circuit. He averaged 36.3 points per game his junior year at Chittenango, then went to prep school to challenge himself against better competition.<\/p>\n
Cushing Academy, which competes in the NEPSAC, offered a landing spot, and Moesch said he immediately felt the impact of his transfer there. <\/p>\n
The Cushing gym attracted more college coaches to evaluate him and his teammates. High major coaches approached and expressed interest, telling him to \u201ckeep hooping\u201d and keep improving. Those conversations implied an offer might one day surface.<\/p>\n
This summer, Moesch said, the attention ballooned. Coaches called and texted every day. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust a lot more schools, a lot more attention,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s more pressure, but it\u2019s good pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crotty has coached on the AAU circuit for 17 years. He used to be the kind of coach who envisioned his players at one college for the entirety of their careers. But the game has changed significantly. And Crotty said players need to understand how those changes impact them.<\/p>\n
Every season serves as an audition, either for a player\u2019s current team or a potential transfer suitor. In a win-now world, coaches can\u2019t afford to develop latent talent. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re really looking at a series of one-year contracts,\u201d Crotty said.<\/p>\n
High school players, of course, need to start somewhere. <\/p>\n
Earlier this summer, Moesch thought he might make a few visits in the fall and pick a program before his Cushing season started. He has since visited Providence and Siena and is unsure if he will see other campuses. <\/p>\n
He will likely decide within the next couple weeks, he said. He has narrowed his list to a handful of schools. <\/p>\n
At one point, Moesch considered waiting until the frenzy of the 2026 transfer portal subsided.<\/p>\n
Then, he could reassess the rosters of the teams he is considering and decide on a destination with a better understanding of what the roster might look like. Moesch said he\u2019s suspicious of programs that lose large volumes of players to the portal every year.<\/p>\n
Late decisions, though, come with their own perils. The most potentially worrisome is an injury. <\/p>\n
Moesch, too, worries about another high school point guard committing to a program he really likes. Richmond, he said, got a commitment from a point guard<\/a> and promptly stopped recruiting him. <\/p>\n \u201cI just think that\u2019s an unlikely pathway,\u201d Crotty said of a late commitment. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say no to a wonderful opportunity and it\u2019s hard to say no to people who want you now on the hope that somebody who doesn\u2019t want you now will want you later.\u201d<\/p>\n Moesch ultimately wants what most recruited high school athletes want: a staff he feels comfortable with; teammates he likes; the opportunity to play as a freshman.<\/p>\n Some coaches have talked with him about name, image and likeness opportunities, he said. He\u2019s trying to learn as much as he can about the \u201cbusiness side\u201d of recruiting. But he mostly just wants a program that feels right.<\/p>\n Crotty said Moesch played well in May and June on the recruiting circuit. He had an \u201cexceptional\u201d July and was named a second-team All-Under Armour player for his summer work. <\/p>\n The lack of high-major offers puzzles his coaches. They get that he\u2019s a smaller guard. But the point guard they watch on a regular basis, they said, deserved a broader recruitment audience. <\/p>\n \u201cRyan is an anomaly in that sense where I talk to coaches almost like this is getting crazy, a bit foolish,\u201d Cormier said. \u201cI understand transfers are the way of the world at the moment, but I think too many coaches are overlooking Ryan and I\u2019ve been pretty stern about that.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, Moesch will need to weigh every aspect of his decision and settle on a school. His basketball skills have attracted two dozen Division I offers. Does he wait to see if bigger programs come courting? Or does he pick from his current options?<\/p>\n Earlier in the summer, Moesch wasn\u2019t sure. <\/p>\n But now, he seems determined to settle his college fate soon. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just going to try to use all my resources as much as I can and make a decision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chittenango, N.Y. \u2014 If Ryan Moesch is any kind of litmus test, good high school basketball players these…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,64152,398,400,401,99],"class_list":["post-144105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-chittenango","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}