For former top recruit Zion Cruz, Rider an opportunity to come home

Zion Cruz grew up attending Kevin Baggett’s youth basketball camps at Rider. Now he’s returned to Mercer County to play for Baggett and the Broncs.

LAWRENCEVILLE – Zion Cruz is well-traveled for a man his age. His basketball career has taken him to Southern California, Chicago and the middle of Kansas.

The Trenton native was a highly touted prospect as early as middle school, with highlight clips carrying advertisements like “7th Grader Zion Cruz Is Baby Russell Westbrook!” He was a four-star, top-100 high schooler in 2022 with plenty of top programs interested in him.

But before any of that hype began, Cruz grew up attending Kevin Baggett’s youth basketball camps at Rider. Now he’s returned to Mercer County to play for Baggett and the Broncs, with the goal of not only getting his Division I hoops career back on track, but finally getting to play in front of his loved ones.

“Just having my family at the game, all my friends,” Cruz said of the best part about being home. “Being cross-country it’s kind of hard for them to make the games, so just the support from them, that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

In high school, Cruz spent time at Hudson Catholic and the Patrick School before transferring to Kanye West’s since-closed Donda Academy outside Los Angeles. He surprised many by committing to DePaul, which made him the Blue Demons’ first top-50 recruit in 15 years, according to one report at the time.

Cruz dropped 14 points on St. John’s in his first-ever Big East game, but he was relegated to a bench role for most of the season. In the clip below, facing a 10th-ranked Marquette team near the end of the season, Cruz’s instincts are on display as he sheds a defender with a pump fake and finishes over two guys converging on him at the rim.

But at season’s end, Cruz entered the transfer portal. His next destination: Pratt Community College in Pratt, Kansas, population 6,546.

That surprised Baggett.

“I think he could have gone a number of different places, having been recruited coming out of high school,” Baggett said. “We would’ve taken him two years ago as opposed to going to Pratt. It would’ve been no different, but we’re glad he’s in our program.”

The 2023-24 season was challenging for Cruz. Yes, he averaged 14.6 points per game, but an injury sidelined him for the first half of the season, and he was apart from his first child, who was back in New Jersey.

When the offseason arrived and Cruz returned to the portal, Rider had a head start on recruiting him. He was already familiar with the program and the head coach; his older cousin Zahrion Blue play a graduate year with the Broncs in 2022-23; it represented an opportunity to get back to Division I; most of all, it was a chance to come home.

“He’s got some work to do,” Baggett said. “He’s got some rust on him. He’s had some ankle injuries. He’s got his child at home, so there’s a lot on him as a young man, so we’re trying to mentor him off the court as much as we are on the court. There’s a lot to him that, just some growing up that he’s gotta do that most players, student-athletes, don’t have because they don’t have kids.”

“I got a lot of (support) – like with my dad, he kind of helps me out a lot,” Cruz said. “And all the coaching staff, they all have sons, so I’ve got a good mentor.

“It’s not hard, but it’s not easy.”

What was easy for Cruz was choosing Rider, after discussing it with his family, of course. He liked the plan Baggett and his staff laid out for him. That plan? “Just to come in and be a leader and get some wins,” Cruz said.

Unlike most of Rider’s new faces who are still getting familiar with Baggett and his staff, Cruz has a relationship with the coach that goes back years. That lends an opportunity for him to step up as a leader, a connecting piece between his teammates and Baggett.

“He’s a great coach and he wants to teach us the little things,” Cruz said. “Some of us didn’t learn basketball the right way and he inputs that into us every day. He’s a great coach.”

Cruz will be a versatile backcourt body for Rider in MAAC play. He’s the only player the Broncs list as “guard/forward” on their roster online. At 6-foot-5, Cruz knows he has at least one advantage over many of his future MAAC opponents.

“I’m a big guard, so I can thrive on that,” Cruz said. “There’s a lot of little guards in this conference so I think I can thrive on being a big guard.”

Cruz was asked what the best – and healthiest – version of him looks like.

“Like a prime Russell Westbrook,” he said. “Put it like that, like a prime Russell Westbrook. Just a dog. I want to be everywhere.”

Baggett said Cruz has plenty of scoring talent, and he’s taken to coaching on how to be more disciplined and structured within the Broncs’ system. He will be one intriguing piece of a Rider lineup that also features Houston Christian transfer guard Jay Alvarez (15.6 ppg, 4.5 rpg as a freshman) and returning starters T.J. Weeks Jr. and Tariq Ingraham.

Rider starts the season Nov. 4 at UCLA. Not only is that a return to the Los Angeles area for the former Donda Academy star, it’s also a reunion with an old DePaul assistant coach now on UCLA’s staff, Nemanja Jovanovic.

But Rider’s home opener doesn’t come until Nov. 30 against Delaware. That’s the date circled on the Cruz family’s calendars, the date when his friends and other loved ones will pour into Alumni Gymnasium. I asked how many people he’ll have at that game.

“I ain’t gonna lie, like 20? 25?” Cruz said. “Depends on how many tickets they give me.”

As glad as Baggett is to have Cruz in his program, the internal expectations aren’t being ratcheted up out of proportion.

“It’s gonna take us some time,” Baggett said. “I know he comes with a lot of notoriety and credibility, but at the end of the day, until he gets it done at this level, he’s no different than any other guy coming into a program.”

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Hello again. Thanks for reading my third newsletter of the week. Busy times! By Nov. 1, I’ll also be publishing a larger preview of New Jersey’s mid-major teams, as well as a women’s hoops preview. That’s not to mention next week’s plans, which I’ll keep a secret for now.

Let’s clean the glass with three quick-hit observations from Rutgers’ exhibition loss to St. John’s last night:

1. Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper = pretty good on offense! Pretty exciting in transition! Will their defense have some holes early on? You better expect it. It’s unusual to see a Steve Pikiell-coached team yield 91 points, but for the two centerpieces of this roster, it’s not even technically the start of their freshman seasons yet and lapses are going to happen. Final stat lines for posterity: Bailey led Rutgers with 25 points, hit 4 of 9 threes and grabbed five rebounds, finishing plus-2. Harper went for 20 points and four rebounds but finished minus-12. They both lost three turnovers.

2. PJ Hayes and Jordan Derkack stood out big-time. Hayes was the third-leading scorer with 13 points off the bench and hit a 3-pointer that gave the Scarlet Knights their first lead and helped accelerate their huge 22-0 run. He didn’t miss a shot from the field or the foul line; at long last, this could be the knockdown shooter this program has needed for ages. Derkack’s shot wasn’t falling, but he was great at everything else, leading the Scarlet Knights in rebounds (seven), assists (three) and blocks (three). This hustle play to get back and block a shot was my favorite highlight of the night.

3. Ten guys played for Rutgers. Two who did not: Freshman forwards Bryce Dortch and Dylan Grant. If one exhibition game is any indication, they won’t be in the rotation at least for the start of the season. (Then again, it shouldn’t hurt to get them some run against Wagner in a garbage-time scenario.) Tyson Acuff, who missed most of the preseason with a broken foot but has been cleared for action, got on the floor for 2:31.