Their resumes make them two of the more accomplished and interesting high school basketball prospects in recent Northern Kentucky history.
And yet as far as their college recruitment is concerned, they might as well be on different planets even though one is from Union, the other from Erlanger.
Henry Thole is a 6-foot-7, 215-pound senior at Villa Madonna, and not only his school’s all-time scorer and single-game scoring record holder with a 50-point game last year, but an academic star, a former class president, a National Honor Society member on his way to a career, he hopes, in sports medicine.
EJ Walker, just a junior at Lloyd Memorial, is 6-8, 220-pounds and on the radar of dozens of top Division I schools, many where he’s visited and many more who have offered him scholarships. “A national recruit,” he’s labeled as a Top 100 prospect with 1,968 followers on X (formerly Twitter).
Both are double-double guys this season. Walker’s numbers are 17.7 points a game, 10.3 rebounds. Thole, the focal point of his team’s offense, is scoring 20.0 points a game and averaging 14.0 rebounds.
Needless to say, they don’t often cross paths. Little Class A Villa Madonna moves – and plays — in mostly different circles from Lloyd Memorial.
But the two did meet up Wednesday night in Villa Hills, where as expected, Lloyd romped, 100-60, although Thole scored 28 points with 12 rebounds with a pair of three-pointers while hitting on 10 of 12 from the free throw line. Walker scored 21 points on 10 of 11 shooting from the field with 10 rebounds.
At least for this one night, they were in the same ballpark. But that’s where it ends.
Walker, whose father, Mike Walker, is his coach at Lloyd, has been offered scholarships from a number of schools in the Big Ten – Ohio State, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Purdue along with these big-time programs Xavier, Dayton, Arizona State, California, West Virginia and Virginia Tech, among a total of some 40 now. Texas, UCLA, Kansas and Arkansas are the latest to get involved.
“He’s an amazing kid,” Mike Walker told the Zagsblog recruiting site. “He’s a gym rat, his love for the game shows and in terms of his playing style you’re getting a kid who’s very versatile. He can play multiple positions, he can guard multiple positions and he can score at all three levels.”
And then there’s this: “His IQ is really high,” Mike Walker says of his son with a reported 4.0 GPA. “His best ability is being able to pass and make his teammates better. I call him a Swiss Army Knife because there’s so much he can do and that’s what college coaches love about him.”
Thole’s recruiting is a work in progress. He’s set up his own website – henrythole.com – where he updates his bio and posts links to game and highlight videos. And invites readers to contact him.
That’s not a problem for Walker, who as a national recruit, has national recruiting sites like Rivals and On3 doing it for him with updates on his offers and visits while posting his highlight videos. And EJ hasn’t exactly gone looking for publicity: “It’s only my junior season,” EJ texted after an interview request.
But for a senior like Henry, he has no choice but to tell his story. “I would like to play basketball as long as possible (College, Europe, NBA),” the 3.87 student writes on his website, “after which I hope to work with a professional NBA, NFL or MLS team as a team physician.”
“The frustrating part to me,” says Villa Madonna Coach Trevor Gould is the fact that “just one school – Centre College in Danville” – has shown interest in Thole. “Just the head-to-head in the Lloyd game when you look at Henry and EJ side by side,” Gould hopes will change that with Henry’s 28 points coming in 30 minutes while EJ’s 21 came in 26.
“They guarded each other until EJ got in foul trouble and they switched him,” Gould says. “I think Henry is really a D-1 player, a mid-major guy at least. With his ballhandling skills and the way he can drive it, he can play the 3 or the stretch-4 on the wing,” Gould says although he can also go inside against smaller post players.
One problem for all but the top prospects now like Walker is the transfer portal, Gould has been told by a college coach, which is why they’re waiting to see who teams can get transferring in from higher-level programs before they commit to high school recruits.
“On top of everything, what’s frustrating is what a great kid he is, and a great student,” Gould says of Thole. “I’ve been sending out tapes every couple of weeks to schools Henry is interested in.”
HERE’S THE GRIFFIN ELITE BASKETBALL CLASSIC SCHEDULE
For those who’ve asked, here’s the three-day schedule for the Griffin Elite Basketball Classic next weekend in Erlanger featuring a number of top national prospects. Tickets are $10 a game. The facility will be set up with bleachers for approximately 800 attendees a game. One Northern Kentucky high school team will be featured Friday (Newport) and Saturday (Lloyd Memorial) with two on Sunday (Cooper and Covington Catholic). Pre-orders available through Thursday at Griffin Elite Basketball Classic 2023 Tickets, Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 7:00 PM | Eventbrite.
FRIDAY (Dec. 15): Cincinnati Elder vs. IMG Academy (Fla.), 7 p.m.; Newport vs. Huntington (W. Va.) Prep, 9 p.m.
SATURDAY (Dec. 16): Harlan County (Ky.) vs. Louisville DeSales, 5 p.m.; IMG Academy vs. Lloyd Memorial, 7:30 p.m.
SUNDAY (Dec. 17): Kings (Ohio) vs. Louisville DeSales, 12 noon; Cooper vs. Legacy Charter (Fla.), 2:30 p.m.; Centerville (Ohio) vs. Moravian Prep (N.C.), 5 p.m.; CovCath vs. La Lumiere (Ind.), 7:30 p.m.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him @dweber3440 on X (formerly Twitter).