Shakopee’s Blake Betton had a blast playing on one of the top AAU basketball teams in the country for years, but football took priority this summer.
Betton, the most highly recruited defensive player in Minnesota’s 2027 class, has offers from SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 college football programs.
That caused the 6-3, 200-pound linebacker/safety to sacrifice playing with his childhood friends on Howard Pulley’s Nike hoops team to attend team camps to boost his football recruiting profile.
“I knew my future was more with football,” said Betton, who has offers from Michigan, Iowa and the Gophers, among others. “I still like playing for my high school basketball team, but I just knew to focus on football was the best thing for me. I had to get bigger, faster and stronger and get ready for the camps.”
Betton’s summer basketball was limited to a couple of local summer tournaments with Shakopee. That worked well for his football-heavy schedule. One of his former AAU teammates is the state’s No. 1 junior, Ty Schlagel from Cretin-Derham Hall, who has basketball offers from the Gophers and Wisconsin.
“I definitely miss it and feel like I could still add some value to that Pulley team,” Betton said. “It wasn’t until my freshman year going into my sophomore year when I switched from basketball to football as my main sport.”
Hopkins brothers Jayden and Tre Moore and Waseca’s Deron Russell were among the best basketball players in the state during the AAU season. They didn’t stop training for football as summer basketball went on.
“With AAU season, it’s kind of hard because we’re traveling,” said Jayden Moore, who has Division I offers for basketball and football. “But when we’re back home, the workouts we do for basketball and football are tied into each other and the same. Then we’ll do some extra things on the side for each sport.”