KU hoops offers Eudora’s Ballock

By Gary Bedore     Aug 19, 2014

Mike Yoder
Eudora High senior Andrew Ballock, left, and his brother, freshman Mitchell, play together for the Cardinals’ boys basketball team. Mitchell is already drawing attention from Division I basketball programs and attributes his success to the backyard basketball beatdowns he endured at the hands of his older siblings while growing up.

Eudora High sophomore combo guard Mitchell Ballock, who led the Cardinals to the Class 4A-II state championship last March and starred at this summer’s Stephen Curry camp in California, has been offered a scholarship to play basketball at Kansas University.

“Very excited,” the 6-foot-4 Ballock told the Journal-World on Monday night after receiving the offer on his parents’ 30th wedding anniversary.

He added that he has “no time frame. I have a long time (to make decision on a school).”

Ballock, a left-handed sharpshooter, has received offers from KU, Creighton and Iowa State. It’s expected that before long he will be offered by all the major colleges in the country.

“I kind of knew it was coming, but I was surprised when it (KU offer) happened,” he told JayhawkSlant.com.

Mike Yoder
Eudora High senior Andrew Ballock, left, and his brother, freshman Mitchell, play together for the Cardinals’ boys basketball team. Mitchell is already drawing attention from Division I basketball programs and attributes his success to the backyard basketball beatdowns he endured at the hands of his older siblings while growing up.

Ballock won a three-point shooting contest from the NBA line and was recognized with the “best shooter” award at the end of the Curry camp, which was for 20 of the top high school guards in the country and a couple from overseas. It was invitation-only.

He averaged more than 20 points a game for state champ Eudora High last season.

“Kansas fans, I hate to get you too excited,” ESPN basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla tweeted from the Curry camp, “but … Eudora soph, Mitch (Ballock) put on a shooting show at @StephenCurry30 Select Camp. NBA range.”

His 16th birthday was the final day of the camp.

“That was a good way to spend it (birthday),” Ballock, a member of the KCRunGMC program, told the Journal-World recently. “It was cool. … It was different for me. A lot of good talent, a lot of players. You don’t get a lot of opportunities like that every day.”

Mitchell, who scored 40 points in his first high school game, totaled 20 points, while his brother, Andrew, scored 19 in Eudora’s 71-58 state-title victory over Scott City in March in Park City. It was the first state hoops title in Eudora history. Andrew, a senior on last year’s team, is a freshman scholarship player at Missouri Southern, where he will play for former KU players Jeff Boschee (head coach) and Nick Bradford (assistant).

For an in-depth look at the Ballock family, read this article by the Journal-World’s Bobby Nightengale.

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