Photo by Brian W Nelson
After giving a short speech to a packed room at DeLaSalle High School, senior Sacar Anim pulled a hat out of his drawstring backpack and put it on his head.
The shooting guard announced Monday that he is heading to Marquette University.
“It’s a big weight. I feel 10 pounds lighter. Just to have [the] burden of not knowing where I’m going to go the whole season — it didn’t really affect my play, I would say. It made me a little bit hungrier,” Anim said. “I just feel good.”
Anim, an ESPN four-star recruit and the second-ranked player in the state, had offers from Northern Iowa, Drake and Lehigh, among others.
ESPN currently has him as the 36th-best player at his position. Despite initial interest, the University of Minnesota did not offer Anim a scholarship.
The guard is currently averaging around 25 points per game and DeLaSalle coach Dave Thorson said he thought Marquette appreciated Anim’s versatility, both offensively and defensively.
“Coach [Steve Wojciechowski] made him a priority. They saw him play in December, but when Coach Wojo came back in January … Sacar could feel that he was a priority,” Thorson said.
Anim said he decided on Marquette a week ago.
“When they had come to visit me the third time, it had been a three-week stretch and they visited me every week, that definitely is something like ‘Oh, these guys really want me,’ ” Anim said.
Betsy Helfand is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.