Now a 5-star, Sallis has reached uncharted territory
Hunter Sallis had already entered rare territory when he cracked the top 50 in the previous 2021 Rivals150 rankings. Now he’s accomplished something no other Nebraska player had ever done before him.
When the latest ’21 ratings were released on Wednesday, the standout Millard North guard and top Husker recruit had jumped a whopping 27 spots from No. 47 up to the No. 20 prospect in the nation and was awarded a fifth star.
That made Sallis the first Nebraska-born player ever to earn five-star status and far and away the highest-ranked instate prospect of the Rivals era (2003-present). He passed Omaha North’s Justin Patton, a four-star Creighton signee who was the No. 45 player in the 2015 class.
The only other Nebraska natives to make the Rivals150 rankings were Omaha Central’s Akoy Agau (No. 87 in 2013); South Sioux City’s Mike Gesell (100, 2012); Millard North’s Max Murrell (103, 2020); Lincoln North Star’s Donovan Williams (127, 2020); Lincoln Southeast’s Matt Hill (127, 2006); and Bellevue West’s Chucky Hepburn (currently 129 in the 2021 class).
Only Patton, Agua, Gesell, Murrell, and Williams were four-star recruits.
Rivals.com basketball recruiting national analyst Eric Bossi said Sallis’s stock started to soar when he more than held his own at the USA Basketball minicamp this summer in Colorado Springs, and the 6-foot-4 guard has been rising ever since.
“Hunter Sallis made a big impression on us during fall workouts and at USA Basketball’s minicamp,” Bossi said. “He has great size, is skilled, has the versatility to play the one or the two, and is younger than many of the other top guards in his class.
“We did a lot of homework on him and everything about him suggests he’s on his way to being one of the top players in his class, so we felt comfortable giving him a big bump."
Rivals basketball recruiting analyst Corey Evans agreed, crediting much of Sallis’ rapid progression to a combination of pure talent and a relentless work ethic.
“Sallis is really everything you look for in a new-age guard,” Evans said. “He has size, wiggle to his game, an elite feel and pace for things, can shoot it but also create for others, and defend a variety of positions. If there is someone that we wanted to take a chance on due to all of those traits, his work ethic, intangibles, and incremental rate of progression, Sallis is the guy.”
With Sallis’s recruiting profile entering uncharted waters as far instate targets, Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg and his staff will certainly have their work cut out in trying to keep Sallis at home as a Husker.
Sallis took his first official to Lincoln in November, but he was just out in Spokane, Wash., for his second official to national power Gonzaga. Kansas has offered, as have a slew of other high-majors like Iowa State, Oregon, Alabama, Ohio State, Missouri, Kansas State, Iowa, UConn, Arkansas, Cal, Creighton, and Ole Miss.
That offer list will likely grow exponentially by the time he’s ready to make a college decision next fall, and many more of the bluebloods of college basketball could come calling.
The good news for the Huskers is that despite all of this national attention, Sallis and his family have expressed plenty of interest in being a hometown hero.
“It’s my home state,” Sallis told HuskerOnline.com last month. “My family could come watch me play and it’s really close to home. Really, the coaching staff, I know (Hoiberg’s) background is really good and he’s an NBA coach. That’s always good having that connection…
“Playing in front of my family and like my friends. That's really big, and that's one of the things I’m looking at during recruitment. So it's really big.”