After a great senior season, Jacob LaRavia re-opened his recruitment as SIU-E made a coaching change. Indiana Basketball Source caught up with LaRavia after a recent workout.

Spring recruiting always goes into a different gear as programs try to fill voids. Throw a talented player like Jake LaRavia back on the market during that time, and things go into another tier. There has been no shortage of schools that have reached out.

“I’ve had about 20 mid-major coaches reach out, and I’ve told a lot of them no because of the location,” said Jacob LaRavia about his current situation. “That was part of my decision in the de-commitment (from SIU-E) because I want to stay close to home like an Indiana school.”

Speaking of an Indiana school, Indiana State has offered LaRavia. He is planning to take an official visit to the Missouri Valley school in a couple of weeks. The date isn’t completely set yet.

He is also hearing from high-major schools like Purdue and Missouri. Purdue is waiting for its postseason to complete before engaging LaRavia more.

Missouri has University of Evansville graduate and former assistant coach Chris Hollender.

“I’ve been talking to Coach Hollander,” LaRavia told Indiana Basketball Source. “He has just been checking up on me, and he said he was going to come down here and check me out.”

It sounds like LaRavia’s situation will change if Purdue enters the picture.

“I’ve been keeping up with them ever since they started recruiting me,” LaRavia said about Purdue. “Who plays on the team, how they play, how Coach Painter coaches - I like everything. I think I could be really good fit there.”

LaRavia is getting these new opportunities behind a tremendous senior year. He was a role player that didn’t score much as a junior. He had a breakout travel season last spring and summer before parlaying that into a huge season for Lawrence Central.

“It was really fun,” LaRavia said of his senior campaign. “It was a good experience. It definitely didn’t go out the way we wanted to but playing the last year with those guys was a really fun time.”

Lawrence Central was a top three team most of the year and won the tough Sectional 10.

“It was a big deal for us,” LaRavia said of winning the sectional. “It was, at least in my opinion and it should be everyone’s, the hardest sectional in the state, and being able to beat Warren Central twice in one year is a tough a thing to do, so we were pretty excited about it.”

Jacob LaRavia is receiving plenty of interest, but he is limiting the field by preferring to stay close to home. That’s no surprise as he made it clear in the fall that he wished to stay close to home. It will be an interesting few weeks for LaRavia.