Nevada Preps boys basketball players countdown — No. 4

To create the list, we spoke with coaches from across the valley. A couple of the base questions were: “Who is the top high school boys basketball player today?” and “Who would you pick to start a team?”

Then we grabbed the statistics from last season, looked at the player’s collective rankings on recruiting websites and used our own judgment to fill holes.

Nevada Preps Boys Basketball Players Rank: Bishop Gorman’s Noah Taitz No. 4

Class

2020

Vitals

6 feet, 3 inches; 175 pounds

Honors

All-State Second Team, All-Southwest League First Team (2018)

Recruiting

Taitz has scholarship offers from BYU, DePaul, Minnesota, Rice, Southern Mississippi, Stanford, UNLV, UNR, Utah, Vanderbilt and Washington.

Last Season’s Stats

Taitz was second on the Gaels with 17.5 points per game, and led all scorers with 27 points in the Sunset Region title game against Clark.

What they are saying

— “When you think about Taitz, everybody goes ‘Oh Taitz, he stands there and shoots the ball.’ And that’s true, he’s a very good shooter, but he a has a lot of other deceptive stuff,” a Desert Region coach said. “He has a really deceptive first step, and Taitz will pick up the basketball, go to the bucket and dunk on you. … Taitz scares me a lot of times.”

— “He seems to play the bigest in big games. He’s just ready for big games,” a Desert Region coach said. “If there’s one shot, I’m going to put the ball in Noah’s hands.”

— “You just can’t give him an inch on the perimeter,” a Desert Region coach said. “I think he’s still got to work on finishing off the dribble, although we’ve seen that get better and better every year.”

Nevada Preps Boys Basketball Players Rank: Bishop Gorman’s Isaiah Cottrell No. 5

Class

2020

Vitals

6 feet, 10 inches; 210 pounds

Honors

All-State Third Team, All-Southwest League First Team (2018)

Recruiting

Cottrell has scholarship offers from Arizona, Arizona State, California, Creighton, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, LSU, Marquette, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Pacific, Rutgers, Southern California, St. John’s, Stanford, Syracuse, Texas Tech, UC Santa Barbara, UNLV, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Washington and West Virginia.

Last Season’s Stats

Cottrell had 12.1 points per game for the Gaels last year, and led the team with 10.3 rebounds per game.

What they are saying

— “Isaiah Cottrell is a big guy who is super skilled,” a Desert Region coach said. “He will end up being a four man eventually because he’s so skilled. He can shoot the ball. He’s got really good skills.”

— “He’s not in control or one of those bigs that has to shoot it every time, so he will run an offense, which you do not find a lot of bigs that will do,” a Desert Region coach said. “He’s getting better on defense, he’s going to go block shots, he’s smart.”

— “I was actually impressed with his perimeter jumper, how it developed,” a Desert Region coach said. “Is the ability and the talent there? Yeah absolutely.”