Indiana has entered the mix for fast-rising in-state class of 2024 big man Flory Bidunga.
The Hoosiers offered the 6-foot-9 and 215-pound center on Wednesday afternoon according to his AAU program.
While we say “in-state” it is likely best to not think of Bidunga that way. While he attends Kokomo H.S. (Kokomo, Ind.), he has only been in the United State since 2021. The Democratic Republic of the Congo product attends the northern Indiana school as part of an international program. He averaged 17.5 points, 13.3 rebounds and 5.3 blocks while leading Kokomo to the Class 4A semi-state.
The more relevant part for IU is likely that Bidunga plays for the Indiana Elite AAU program on the Adidas 3SSB circuit. That’s a program that has produced plenty of IU players through the years, and Bidunga played this spring and summer with two prospects — Raleigh Burgess and Travis Perry — that the Hoosiers are also recruiting. With its potent inside-out weapons, that 2024 Indiana Elite squad won the 16u Adidas 3SSB crown.
Bidunga was a soccer player until around the age of 12 when he started playing basketball. 247Sports national analyst Eric Bossi wrote this evaluation of Bidunga yesterday after watching him at the final Adidas event in California over the weekend:
“Bidunga is a straight up man child. I may have to go all the way back to the days of watching Amare Stoudemire to recall a rising junior who destroyed rims as frequently as Bidunga does,” Bossi wrote. “It isn’t just his dunking, it is how he puts his athletic gifts to use as a shot blocker, rebounder and big man who plays each possession like it’s his last. He runs from rim to rim like he’s in a race, he sprints out to set bone crushing picks and he’s also a pretty nifty passer out of the post. The only reason he’s not ranked is because we haven’t updated our 2024 rankings since getting our first glimpse of him. When we update next month, Bidunga is a stone cold lock to debut as a five-star prospect.”
Rivals recently slotted Bidunga in as a 5-star and the No. 6 overall player in the 2024 class. As Bossi suggests, he’ll likely land in a similar vicinity once the other outlets make their post-summer updates.
IU joins Purdue, Auburn, Wake Forest, Creighton, Arizona State and Bradley as schools that have offered to this point.
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