Clark’s Trey Woodbury turns heads with play — not tweets
Clark senior-to-be Trey Woodbury could only hide for so long.
In an era full of attention-seeking and self-promotion, Woodbury is nowhere to be found on social media like a lot of his peers.
He’s off the Twitter grid — the essential platform for teenage athletes vying for college scholarships.
“I just haven’t had one since I was little,” said Woodbury, 17. “My parents didn’t want me to have one like in middle school. So once I got to high school, I was already used to it. It didn’t bother me.”
The lack of a “personal brand” hasn’t made the 6-foot-3-inch guard any less attractive to college coaches. Woodbury, in fact, has become one of the hottest recruits on the West Coast over the past four months and will look to keep the momentum going this week when colleges, fans and an estimated 3,500 AAU teams visit Las Vegas for five days of non-stop basketball.
“He doesn’t have social media. He doesn’t answer his text messages,” said Vegas Elite AAU coach Rich Thornton, laughing. “He’s not a social butterfly. … A lot of coaches will call me and be like, ‘I don’t think Trey is really feeling us because he doesn’t answer.’ And I’m like, ‘Coach, don’t be offended. That’s just him.’”
Woodbury, a four-star recruit, is the top-ranked prospect in Nevada and the No. 99 overall recruit in the country, according to Rivals.com. With Vegas Elite playing in the Fab 48 tournament — one of the three main tournaments in the valley — this week at Bishop Gorman, Woodbury could see even more exposure.
“His recruiting isn’t slowing down,” Clark coach Chad Beeten said. “His best basketball is ahead of him.”
But prior to April, Woodbury had just one scholarship offer — from Air Force.
Some might say it was that lack of a social-media presence.
“I think it works against me, sometimes,” Woodbury said. “Because these recruiting sites don’t know. People don’t know.”
Woodbury, though, has proved those constant updates aren’t necessary. After averaging 14.1 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists as a junior this past season when he led Clark High School to the Class 4A state championship game against Gorman, he’s seen his recruiting stock rise.
He’s taken advantage of his opportunities in travel competition, performing consistently in front of college coaches.
“It was just a matter of being in the right situation and right time and playing well,” Beeten said. “They realized he wasn’t a one-hit wonder. He was consistent and kept stringing together really good games.”
Woodbury currently has scholarship offers from Arizona State, Montana, Southern California, Southern Utah, Texas Christian, UC Santa Barbara, UNLV and Utah State.
If history is any indication, the number of schools will likely go up this week.
But don’t count on Woodbury saying much about it on social media.
“I’m not a big talker,” Woodbury said. “I just do.”
More Preps: See all of our Nevada Preps coverage online at nevadapreps.com and @NevadaPreps on Twitter.
Contact reporter Ashton Ferguson at aferguson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0430. Follow @af_ferguson on Twitter.
