City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Chris Collins and Bryant McIntosh didn’t know they were walking into an ambush.

When the Northwestern men’s head coach and assistant coach got to Penn Charter to visit with senior guard Jake West last Wednesday, they were taken to a meeting room. There was West, a Northwestern shirt already on, with a bit of good news. 

They weren’t just there to see him as a follow-up after his official visit to Northwestern the weekend prior. They were there to get his commitment to their program in person.

“They were really surprised, which was awesome,” West said. ”They said ‘this is the best day, because they also got another recruit the same day, [Indiana forward] Trey Singleton. Coach Collins said this was the best day of his life, so it was awesome.”

The 6-foot-3 point guard announced his commitment to the Wildcats publicly on Tuesday night, an ending to his recruitment that seemed most unlikely as recently as a month ago. 

Collins and McIntosh had been recruiting West earlier in the summer, but their communication tailed off after Peach Jam in July, according to the Penn Charter senior. He said Northwestern told him at the time they were prioritizing their recruiting efforts on wings and bigs, and West had plenty of other schools who were pursuing him. 

It was as he was setting official visits to the likes of Charlotte and Virginia Commonwealth that the Northwestern staff got back in touch. As it turned out, an early-September trip to Europe showed the staff that they did need another point guard in their 2025 class.

Northwestern visited Philadelphia in mid-September to see West; by early October, he was taking an official visit to Evanston, Ill. And he was sold almost instantly. 

“I think just the relationship with the players and staff [...] I feel like I bonded really well with them, and that’s important because you’re going to be playing with those guys next year,” he said. “Also just like, it’s at the highest level, it’s one of the best conferences in the world, the Big Ten, you’re playing great competition every night, so that’s something I wanted to do.”

He’s the fourth member of Northwestern’s 2025 class, along with Singleton, Olentangy (Ohio) forward Tyler Kropp and St. Ignatius (Ill.) guard Phoenix Gill, whose father Kendall Gill had a 16-year NBA career. 

Playing in the Big Ten next year means West will be playing against one of his current teammates; fellow senior Kai Shinholster committed to Minnesota in September. 

“He was like ‘oh yeah, we’re going to beat you guys,’” West said. “It’s just awesome to know I’m going to be playing against someone that I grew up with playing high school ball.”

They’re just two of the three high-major commitments on the Quakers’ roster, with center Matt Gilhool off to LSU next fall. Those three are a major reason Penn Charter won the Inter-Ac title outright in an extremely competitive race last year, and why it’s favored to defend its title this winter.

West’s commitment is the latest step in a journey that’s seen him go from a 5-foot-6 freshman at Plymouth Whitemarsh during the COVID year into a bona fide high-major prospect, all while becoming a social media star along the way. 

After his year at P-W, along with a five-inch growth spurt, West played for two years at Archbishop Carroll, then transferred to Penn Charter in the 2023 offseason. When he got to PC, Quakers coach Brandon Williams knew he had a talented lead guard, but even he was unsure exactly how high West’s ceiling was.

“When I sat down with his dad a couple years ago, in regards to him coming over to PC, he asked me, ‘do you think he’s a high-major player?’” Williams recalled. “I said I don’t, I think his ceiling’s A-10, but I’ll give him every opportunity to prove such.

“He proved me wrong, man. I gotta tell you.”

Over the last 18 months, West continued to work on his skills, while growing another couple inches and increasing his athleticism. It became clear this summer that he’d taken his game another level, averaging 14 points and four assists per game with Team Final on the Nike EYBL circuit, impressing with Penn Charter during the June live periods as well. A strong outside shooter and ball-handler, West showed he can finish at the rim and even block a few shots, too.

Offers flooded in from leagues mid-to-high-major alike; his final five schools were Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Northwestern, VCU and Florida.

In addition to proving himself to college coaches, West’s summer was proof of his basketball abilities to his social media followers. Over the last couple years, through various TikTok dance videos and other viral content, West has grown his following to over 1.5 million on TikTok and just shy of a quarter-million on Instagram. 

To those followers, West has always been an influencer first, but that’s not how he sees himself in reality. Watch him play, and his talent on the court is proof that he’s not just a hype machine or social media whiz.

“I’ve always been a basketball player, always playing hard, always competing,” he said. “I think it’s cool that I played at the highest level, EYBL, so people can really see my talent. Now people can see that I can really play basketball. It’s awesome to have both, and it’s good for me to thrive with both personalities.”

While his millions of followers might make him an attractive target from an NIL perspective, West said it actually had the opposite effect, though he’s happy about how it all played out.

“Some of the other schools didn’t recruit me when they realized I had that, because they thought it was a distraction,” West said. “Some of the schools stopped recruiting me when they heard about all those followers and stuff, but the schools that stuck around were awesome because they wanted me for me.”