The Green Bay Phoenix coaching staff barely had to leave Brown County to extend their latest class of 2020 scholarship offer.

The Phoenix offered a scholarship to Southern Door High School 6’6” wing Ryan Claflin on Wednesday, the player announced on Twitter.

He has earned several Division II scholarship offers to date but the offer from Green Bay is the first Division I offer for the star senior.

As a junior at Southern Door, located about a half hour drive north of the UW-Green Bay campus on basically the same road (state Highway 57), Claflin averaged 15.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game and was named first team All-Conference in the Packerland Conference. His highlight reel consists of high flying dunks but he also showed the ability to shoot from the outside consistently by knocking down over 42% of his three point attempts.

He reached double figure scoring in 19 of his team’s 24 games last season and helped lead Southern Door to a 19-5 overall record and a Packerland Conference title.

Claflin ranks as a top 15 prospect among the state of Wisconsin’s impressive 2020 high school recruiting class according to WisSports.net and is currently listed as the #4 ranked uncommitted prospect in the state according to the website.

Photo via Southern Door County School District 

He was also named a “breakout performer” at the Wisconsin Basketball Yearbook Tournament this summer.

“Claflin is one of the hottest names in the 2020 class in Wisconsin,” Mark Miller of WisSports.net and the Wisconsin Basketball Yearbook wrote in July. “Claflin combines excellent size, stellar athleticism and very solid skills to make a huge impact on every game he plays.”

“He is an extremely unselfish player who has a very good basketball IQ. And his ability to finish above the rim, make three-point shots and get his teammates involved were all very apparent at the WBY Tournament in Kaukauna.”

Claflin’s high basketball IQ is likely somewhat thanks to his father, Pete, coaching at the high school level for over two decades.  With Derik Hawkey resigning from the head coaching job at Southern Door this past April, Pete Claflin will re-take the reigns as the head coach of his son’s team.  He previously coached at the school for 20 years up until 2011.

Claflin would be just the third in-state prospect to commit to Green Bay in the past five years as Linc Darner and his staff have not had much success recruiting the state of Wisconsin during their tenure. Trevor Anderson (2016) and Will Chevalier (2017) are the only two scholarship prospects to commit to the Phoenix from the Badger state so far in the Darner era.

The staff has had success, however, in landing Division I transfers looking to come back home with David Jesperson, Sandy Cohen, and Cody Schwartz being solid contributors after starting their collegiate careers elsewhere.

Despite recently receiving two verbal commitments for the 2020 recruiting class, Green Bay will still have at least three more scholarships to fill to replace departing seniors Kam Hankerson, Cody Schwartz, Tank Hemphill, Josh McNair, and JayQuan McCloud.

Jefersonville, Indiana high school prospect Jacob Jones and JUCO forward Paris Taylor are the Green Bay’s first class of 2020 verbal commitments.  They can make the commitments official when the signing period begins on November 13.

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