“I love guards.”

That’s a statement you’ll hear over and over from Northwest College men’s basketball coach Jay Collins.

No surprise then that Collins’ second signing to a basketball scholarship for the 2020-21 season is a 6 foot, 2-inch guard — Donovan Rodriguez from Philadelphia. Rodriguez joins the Trappers from Bonner High School, which plays in the Catholic League in Philadelphia.

“He’ll be a really good player for us,” Collins said. “He can really shoot it. He’s not going to be shocked when we play Casper and they roll out their lineup. He’s already seen and played against that kind of talent.”

Rodriguez averaged 14 points per game his senior season in what Collins called “a very competitive league in Philadelphia.”

“That’s pretty good on a team that had three other kids who signed D-1 scholarships,” Collins added.

In this year of closed campuses and travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, recruiting Rodriguez was completely a virtual process. Rodriguez has not been to Powell and has not seen NWC.

The recruiting connection for Collins was a good buddy at Rider University in New Jersey, who is a good friend of the high school coach at Bonner H.S. He put Collins in touch, and from there it was all technology. 

“I saw video of Donovan. We FaceTimed. We Zoomed. That’s just the way it is going to be this year,” Collins said. “Wyoming is just starting to open up. In Philadelphia, they’re still closed tight. They can’t practice. They can’t go to the gym.”

The same process is playing out for Collns with a couple of other recruits.

“I do think we have, two, maybe three signings to announce very soon,” he said.

Northwest College’s first scholarship signing of this year’s class was also a guard. Bryson Stephens of Arapahoe High School in Denver inked a Trapper scholarship in April.