SAN ANTONIO — The UTSA men’s basketball program announced Tuesday the signing of Matt DeWaal (Compton, Calif./Dominguez HS), Kevin Jackson (Irving/Hill College) and Joey Shank (Folsom, Calif./American River College) to National Letters of Intent. The trio joins Devin Gibson (Houston, Texas/Cypress Falls HS), who signed an NLI on Nov. 8, to complete the fall signing class. The four players will arrive on campus for the 2007-08 season.
“We are very pleased with the signing of these four young men,” head coach Brooks Thompson said. “We’ve added a point guard, a shooting guard, a power forward and a center, so this really is a complete group of players that will have an immediate impact from the day they step foot on campus. This signing class is a very positive step toward our goal of building a successful program at UTSA.”
DeWaal is a 6-10 center from Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif. As a junior, he averaged 10.3 points and 10.0 rebounds per game in his first season at Dominguez. DeWaal helped the Dons post a 20-6 record and reach the semifinal round of the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section (CIF-SS) Division IIAA playoffs in 2005-06. He was a high school teammate of current UTSA freshman guard Dezon Otis, as both played for Dezon’s father, Russell, 17th-year head coach of the Southern California prep powerhouse.
Jackson is a 6-7 power forward at Hill College who is originally from Irving, Texas. He just began his sophomore season at Hill, located in Hillsboro, under head coach Swede Trenkle, posting eight points and 10 rebounds in his first outing, a 70-67 victory against Trinity Valley on Nov. 15. Jackson was a member of the Team USA 21-and-under squad that finished third at the 2006 Global Games held at SMU’s Moody Coliseum in June. He averaged 17.0 points and 11.5 rebounds per game as a senior at MacArthur High School, earning All-District 6-5A accolades for the Cardinals in the process.
Shank is a 6-2 shooting guard originally from Folsom, Calif. As a freshman at American River College in Sacramento, Calif., Shank averaged 14.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game. A tremendous outside shooter, he drained 55.0 percent from behind the 3-point line en route to earning first-team All-Big Seven Conference honors in 2006. This season, Shank is scoring 19.0 points per game through the first four contests as ARC is off to a 3-1 start under head coach Mark Giorgi. He poured in a career high-tying 25 points — including six 3-pointers — in ARC’s 81-59 victory over Lassen on Nov. 14. A standout player at Folsom High School near Sacramento, he earned first-team All-Delta League accolades following his senior season.
Gibson, a 6-1 point guard, Gibson signed on Wednesday, Nov. 8, and just began his senior season for head coach Jim Draudt at Cypress Falls High School in the Houston area. As a junior, Gibson averaged 12.5 points, six assists and four rebounds per game to help lead the Golden Eagles to their third consecutive District 17-5A championship. Cy Falls posted a 29-5 overall and 14-2 district record and advanced to the area round of the playoffs. Gibson also was a member of a district championship squad as a sophomore. He is ranked No. 28 among the state’s high school seniors by Mike Kunstadt’s TexasHoops.com and No. 16 among high school seniors in the Greater Houston Area by Jim Hicks’ RCS Sports The Magazine. He has played for the same summer league team — Houston Heat — since fifth grade, helping them win more than 100 games over the past two seasons, including a 54-7 record this past summer. Under coach Jim Klaunch, the Heat finished second in the Gold Division of 2005 The Main Event in Las Vegas, Nev., and reached the quarterfinal round in 2006. The squad also won all of Mike Kunstadt’s shootouts last summer, including the Great American Shootout.
