After months of quiet recruiting, Penn men’s basketball picked up two players for its Class of 2017 this weekend.
The first of the commits was Dave Winfield Jr., a 6-foot-10 senior from Harvard-Westlake in Studio City, Calif.
The 280-pound center has grown six inches in the last two years according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. But he has suffered some knee injuries in the recent past, presumably attributed to growing pains.
Regardless, the big man averaged 5.1 points, four rebounds and one block per game in his junior season and will enter Penn as a true center, something the Quakers have lacked in recent years.
According to City of Basketball Love, Winfield underwent arthroscopic surgery for his knee and is working with Los Angeles Lakers doctors to rehab.
He is the son of baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, who was a major-league outfielder for 23 seasons.
Winfield’s twin sister, Arielle, also verbally committed to play volleyball at Penn earlier this year.
Winfield will join two current Quakers from Southern California. Junior captain Miles Cartwright and freshman Julian Harrell are both graduates of Loyola High School, which is 13 miles from Harvard-Westlake.
Sunday, Penn added a second recruit when Atlanta’s Tony Bagtas made a verbal commitment.
The 5-11, 160-pound senior at Westlake High School received offers from La Salle, Murray State and Rice, among other mid-major programs.
In Bagtas’ sophomore year, he was named first-team all-region 5-A and all-metro in Atlanta.
According to a Future150 profile, the point guard is quite fast and hard to keep up with, but he has trouble in the paint due to his smaller size.
The Red and Blue will be getting two very different players in Bagtas and Winfield from the two Westlakes of the East and West.
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