2 high-priority basketball recruiting targets among visitors for Nebraska vs. Colorado

Nebraska’s football game against Colorado has a chance to become a signature moment in Matt Rhule’s short tenure as the Huskers’ football coach. It also serves as the centerpiece of a major recruiting weekend for the men’s basketball program, kicking off an important month as NU tries to build for the future.

Amare Bynum and Abdul Bashir, both formerly of Omaha Bryan, confirmed to the Omaha World-Herald that they’d be among the visitors over the upcoming weekend.

Antione West, a guard from Toledo, Ohio, will also reportedly be in attendance.

Another high-priority target will come to Lincoln in two weeks when big man Tommy Ahneman visits during the football game against Illinois.

To get any of the three would be a major recruiting win for Fred Hoiberg.

Bynum and Ahneman are the kind of blue-chip high school prospects the Huskers rarely land. Both are four-star 2025 recruits whose 247Sports composite ratings would put them among the top five Nebraska commits of all time.

Nebraska also just needs bodies on its roster next season.

The Huskers haven’t had anyone committed to their 2025 recruiting class since Braden Frager reclassified to leave high school a year early. It’s a product of Nebraska’s portal-heavy approach to building a team but leaves lots of holes to fill in the offseason.

Juwan Gary, Brice Williams, Andrew Morgan, Rollie Worster, Braxton Meah and Ahron Ulis will all be out of eligibility at the end of the season. Nebraska, in turn, will have a need for a smooth, skilled big man like Ahneman, a pure shooter like Bashir and Bynum’s combination of skill and blunt-force physicality.

In March, Bynum announced he would spend his senior year at Link Academy, a boarding school in Branson, Missouri. Nebraska has recruited him heavily over the past year, long before he averaged 21 points and nine rebounds per game for Bryan as a junior. He took an unofficial visit last fall and met with the NU coaching staff at Bryan. Creighton has also offered Bynum, as has his father Omar’s alma mater Iowa State.

Bashir began his high school career at Bryan, finished it at Colorado Prep and is now a juco prospect from Casper (Wyo) College with a playing style that would mesh well with Nebraska. He averaged 19.4 points and 4.2 rebounds per game while shooting 45.3% from 3-point range as a freshman. During his unofficial visit to NU in June, Bashir watched film with Hoiberg, who used Keisei Tominaga and C.J. Wilcher as examples of how the Huskers could use him coming around screens and off of pin-downs.

Ahneman recently released a list of five schools he’s considering. Nebraska is in the mix along with Wisconsin, Iowa, Notre Dame and Minnesota, which he visited last week. The 6-foot-11 center took an unofficial visit to Nebraska in June. Originally from West Fargo, North Dakota, he’ll spend his senior season at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul.