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Emoni Bates, one of the nation's top young basketball players, comes home to play for EMU

Emoni Bates
EMU Athletics
/
emueagles.com
Emoni Bates

Emoni Bates, once one of the most prized high school basketball recruits in the country, is making national headlines by returning home to play for Eastern Michigan University.

Since they started tracking high school basketball recruiting, there has never been a player of Bates’ caliber to sign with EMU, or any Mid-American Conference school.

Bates led Lincoln High Schoolto a state championship as a freshman, and then became the first sophomore to ever win the Gatorade National Player of the Year award. That put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

After spending his first college season at the University of Memphis, he is coming home to Ypsilanti.

Scott Wetherbee is EMU’s athletic director.

“It was really about coming home, coming back to where he played a lot of his high school games, having the opportunity to be around family and friends here, what he was comfortable with.”

Bates, who is 18 years old, is not eligible for the NBA draft until next year.

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Josh Hakala is the general assignment reporter for the WEMU news department.
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