Dismissed As A Recruit, Aaron Henry Proving Point To Country

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Photo credit © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
Minneapolis – Every college basketball player has his high school moment. Aaron Henry’s came last year when his Ben Davis team was visiting fellow Indianapolis power Center Grove. As then-Ben Davis head coach Mark James remembers it, the deficit was seven points with about a minute to play.

“And Aaron just absolutely took the game over,” James said. “Dunk, block, jumper, steal…”

The specific sequence escapes his memory, so James puts it this way: “He just went crazy. And we ended winning by one or two.”

Wait, no. That’s not Henry’s high school moment. It came earlier in the season when, as James recalls, Henry hung 40 points on a big-time team from Tennessee.

No, no, that’s wrong, too.

It was 50 points. James sold Henry short.

“He doesn’t like to give me my credit,” Henry said with a grin. “But that’s alright. That’s just him.”

Despite his high school stardom, in arguably the most competitive conference in the state of Indiana, Henry wasn’t a high-profile recruit. He was the fourth-ranked player in Michigan State’s five-man class. Just about every list that mattered – well, “mattered” –  left him off. Looking for a five-star? Please – Henry wasn’t even a four-star, according to some recruiting rankings. Sure, most Big Ten schools came calling, but the national powers didn’t have the time.

Think they want a do-over? Three months after stepping into Joshua Langford’s place in Michigan State’s starting five, Henry is a household name. On the list of reasons why the Spartans are two wins away from the national championship – and here’s a list that matters – the freshman who wasn’t supposed to play this season is right there at the top. With each passing game, Henry is sending a message to all those schools that took once glance at him and moved on.

“That’s their loss. They should have recruited me harder,” Henry said. “I’m glad Michigan State did, and they probably didn’t expect me to be the player that I am, starting in the Final Four. They didn’t expect for injures to happen. They just expected me to be prepared. Now that I am, it’s like, okay, and everybody’s upset now that they missed out.

“But it is what is. God wanted me to come here for a reason, so I’m fine with that.”

These aren’t words that Henry speaks with spite. He’s not a person to hold his success over anyone’s head. But he arrived at Michigan State with a point to prove, and he’s proud to have done so in his first season. His lack of hype in high school may have been for the best, anyway. It certainly played into his team’s favor. Henry helped Ben Davis to 45 wins over his final two seasons, including the state championship in 2017.

“He always had that dream of playing at a high level, and he continuously got better,” said James. “I think his sophomore year and freshman year other schools were recruiting kids he thought he was better than or equal than. That was a great motivator for him in high school.”

At Ben Davis, James asked each of his players, early in their careers, to name their dream school. When Henry was a sophomore he put Michigan State high on his list. The AAU team he played for was sponsored by Michigan State great Gary Harris, and Harris turned him on to the idea of becoming a Spartan. Harris put in a word to Tom Izzo, though Izzo wasn’t sold the first time he watched Henry play: Meh. And that was more or less his response each of the few times that followed.
But Harris kept selling his former coach. He kept telling him that Henry was the real deal. Stay with him, Harris urged. Izzo and his staff listened. Eventually they offered Henry a scholarship, around the same time he was offered by the likes of Indiana, Nebraska and Ohio State. Even UCLA expressed some interest late in the process. But Henry visited Michigan State early in the fall of his senior year, and decided right then he was ready to sign. It was the fraternal feeling between the guys on the team.

“Just seeing how close they were. How they bicker with each other like me and my brother did and how they got along. How they always stuck together and how we stick together now, I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else,” Henry said.

If most schools didn’t see the talent and athleticism lurking within Henry, Michigan State’s strength and conditioning coach, Marshall Repp, saw it the moment Henry got to campus last summer.

“His first step, his lateral movement, his 39-inch vertical. I mean, he floats,” said Repp. “It’s effortless.”

Some of Henry’s teammates might disagree, Repp smiled, but Henry probably has the strongest lower body of them all. He made that clear in the weight room right off the bat.  

“I remember there were times last summer, this guy’s a freshman and he’s over there with the upperclassmen dead lifting mid-400’s like it’s nothing,” Repp said. “But he really likes to get after it. He’s a guy where if I say, ‘Alright, do your first set at 350,’ he’ll be like, ‘Nah, nah. 375.’ He’ll always try and push to that next level.”

If Henry’s being honest, he didn’t expect to see his star rise so quickly. Nor did James. Heck, nor did Izzo. There was an understanding when Henry committed to Michigan State that he was going to spend most of his freshman season developing under Langford’s wing. But then Langford went down for the season in late December, and Henry was thrust into a starting role. He hasn’t let it go. He’s averaging 7.1 points and 4.6 rebounds as a starter, and 9.2 points and 6.1 rebounds since March.

And that’s without mentioning Henry’s stalwart defense, which might be the best part of his game. It will be put to the test Saturday versus Texas Tech when he’s sure to spend part of the night covering Big 12 Player of the Year and soon-to-be lottery pick, Jarrett Culver. For Henry, it’s another chance to prove a point.

“When you play a team and you see they got draft picks on there, it’s kind of like, ‘Oh, okay, this is where it’s at right now. I can do something right here. This is a chance for my stock to go up and just make a name for myself,” Henry said.

Henry’s name, of course, has been in headlines for a while. He was the subject of a national controversy when Izzo berated him for a couple mistakes in Michigan State’s first game of the Tournament. Henry was a bit puzzled by the obsession with it all, and gracefully quieted the uproar. He wants Izzo to get after him, he said. It means his coach cares. And in this case, Henry acknowledged he well deserved it. His tendency to take a play off now and then popped up at the wrong time.

James used to scold him for the same thing, and in the same furious manner as Izzo, in high school.

“When the thing with Izzo blew up, that’s not the first time he’s been yelled at, so I was never worried about him in that situation,” said James. “That’s part of coaching. He understands that it’s all in tough love. I knew when he went up there he’d do well.”

The narrative around Henry shifted two games later when he dropped 20 points on LSU in the Sweet 16. Hey, this kid can play. Henry was all over the floor, scoring and defending, inside and out, showing the breadth of his talent to the nation. He still has more to share, and the show will continue Saturday night. Henry isn’t here to be the star, but he can be if his team needs it. That’s been his attitude for as long as James has known him.

As for why Henry went overlooked in high school, why he wasn’t the recruit with five stars next to his name, well, did it really ever matter?  

“I never got into that stuff,” said James, who’s been coaching high school basketball for nearly 40 years. “I look at kids and how the teams do that they play on, and he always played on a winning basketball team.

“I know that when he was picking his school he always wanted to go someplace where he’d have a chance to play in the Tournament. Obviously, he made a pretty good choice.”