From the Wagner brothers (Germans Moritz and Franz) to Canadians Nik Stauskas and Ignas Brazdeikis, Michigan basketball has gone international, signing kids who have brought great team success and opened doors to more outstanding international players.
One of them — Mississauga (Ontario) Canada’s Caleb Houstan (6-8, Rivals.com’s No. 8 senior nationally) — will enter more highly rated than any of them, coming to U-M from elite Montverde (Fla.) Academy. Many believe he might become the best of a bunch that includes one NBA lottery pick (Stauskas), a first rounder in Moe Wagner and another surefire lottery pick this year in Franz Wagner.
That might seem like a lot of pressure for an 18-year-old kid. Houstan, though, isn’t the ordinary teenager. When it became clear early in his teens that he’d have a chance to play basketball at the highest level, he was proactive — at 15 years old — in insisting Montverde was the place he needed to be to hone his game against the best of the best.
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After some heart to hearts and plenty of research, his parents allowed him to leave the nest a bit earlier than most. It wasn’t easy, his mother admitted.
“That was a tough day,” Andrea Houstan recalled. “What was he, 15? But you know what? He played here and wanted to go even a year earlier than that, and I wasn’t even having that discussion at that point. So, he played with the seniors, played with kids three or four years older, and he was doing his thing.”
