Craig Wind has wrote for Rivals.com along with his own recruiting service . Wind weighs in on 810 Varsity events and Kansas City metro area players through the year.

OAK PARK

It’s easy to see why we have OAK PARK ranked pre-season #1 in the KC Metro area. CORBIN ALLEN (6’5”, 2025) has multiple high D1 Power 5 schools and coaches interested, and for good reason. He is long, athletic, and skilled. Corbin has great character and poise. I’d be surprised if he isn’t a high D1 player at the next level. JOSH KORI (6’4”, 2026) and ADAM TANNER (5’10”, 2026) are two of my favorite sophomores on any team in the KC area. Kori is long and very bouncy to the rim. Don’t wanna sleep on his jump shot to the trey line. Tanner is the zone-buster and a coach’s son. Tough and competitive. Plays hard. ZEEK BROWN (6’3”, 2025), CALEB ESTES (6’3”, 2025), and AEDIN FIELDS (6’1”, 2025) are a terrific junior trio and all tough offensive threats, especially in the mid-range. Zeek is also a coach’s son, a nice LH shooter deep with mid range. Estes is handling the ball quite a bit. He’s pretty comfortable with that. Physically and athletically, he’s a cut above to make it D1. Fields is the 6th man super-scorer off the bench. Now if DENG GAK (6’8” 2024) could come alive and become an 8 to 12 minute per game threat and just be a rebounder-defender in the paint and affect shots around the rim, this team would have all the pieces needed for a true Division 6 Missouri state title run. The head coach knows how to win. Sherron Collins did that well as the Jayhawks PG and as the head coach last year at Lawrence Free State HS. The schedule is brutal by design. I’m saying Oak Park has a chance to be special.

STALEY

STALEY is coming off a state championship run, winning it all last March, and head coach Chris Neff is working harder now than he ever did for the last 3 years. When you have players as freshmen at the Power 5 conference level at places like IOWA STATE, WYOMING, and COLORADO STATE graduate from the program, time to start over. The bullseye is squarely on the Falcons back, EVERYBODY will bring their A-game to try to upset their day. They have a very talented player in XAVIER WILSON (6’7” 2025) to build upon. I thought he’d be more inside the paint as a JR, he handled the ball and passed it like a point guard. He COULD become a Power 5 player and as his game matures and develops, he’ll have multiple high D1 offers in all likelihood. They have a young nucleus of underclassmen with KENNISON STONE (6’4” 2026), JAKOBE HICKS (6’0” 2026), and JACKSON SMITH (6’5” 2027) that are the key to climbing back into contention for league and state competition. All three of them will be players sooner or later on down the road. Smith has high D1 upside for sure, he could end up 6’8” pretty easily. How quickly Neff can get the young guys to mesh together will be the key. Tradition never graduates! But these Falcons are YOUNG-YOUNG-YOUNG.

Central (Springfield)

I really didn’t know much about SPRINGFIELD CENTRAL and last night we found out that their four guards KEION EPPS (6’0” 2025), DEVIN SANFORD (6’2” 2025), DAYTON HUSKEY (6’3” 2025), and TAYSHAUN WELLS (6’2” 2025) made a combined 14 treys in the first half alone. That was an 810 Varsity all time record set Saturday night at Oak Park playing Staley. That’s why you win by 36 points at game’s end. When the basketball goes in the hoop, it covers up all your warts, for sure. Having said that, their BEST player to the next level was clearly BRYCE WALKER (6’7” 2025) with a really nice physical body, great hands, and enough athlete to be extremely dangerous. He had some foul trouble. But I really like his D1 upside to the next level. Good young post player. South central Missouri is loaded each and every year with good teams and good players. But Central should be able to hold their own in 2024.

Grandview

GRANDVIEW is deep with really young undersized athletic players. Prentes Potts is doing a nice job with the Bulldogs There three juniors JOSIAH KIRKWOOD (5’10” 2025), AIDAN LEE (5’9” 2025), and COBI JOHNSON (6’6” 2025) are leading the way. Johnson dunked it like it was nobody’s business. Long and supremely athletic. Kirkwood and Lee showed a nice mid-range game. These Bulldogs are looking toasty into their 2025 season. Their best player on this night was probably MICHAEL SMITH, Jr. (6’3” 2024). He made shots and kept his team in the game.