Lupe Nunez, the father of 4-star junior point guard Austin Nunez, is very familiar with the recruiting process and he’s impressed by University of Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman’s pitch for the Hogs.
“He’s done a great job of informing Austin and the family about the program,” Lupe Nunez said. “Some intimate details. How they develop players, the NBA pedigree that the staff has. The mindset of developing kids on and off the court and even from a nutritional basis which I think was pretty impressive on all the details of nutrition and how they train, feed and educate the athletes was definitely top-notch.”
Austin Nunez, 6-2, 170 pounds, of San Antonio Wagner has scholarship offers Arkansas, Texas, Baylor, Georgetown, LSU, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, TCU and others.
The elder Nunez has been around the block when it comes to recruiting after being the director for Under Armour-sponsored Texas Hardwork for the past 10 years. He and the program merged with John Lucas’ JL3 Elite, an Nike EYBL program, in September.
“I have a unique perspective, I’ve been a director of a program for several years and had a lot of high major kids come through our program, so I’ve dealt with it from a directors perspective,” Nunez said.
He noted all high-level college programs have great facilities, fan bases, weight rooms and excellent academics. For him and his son, they want to hear how Austin can fit into a school’s system and how he can improve as a player.
Musselman and associate head coach David Patrick have been very informative about how they can help the younger Nunez.
“Coach Patrick has done a great job,” Nunez said. “He’s been a head coach before. He’s been an assistant at [a] high level, so he understands how to really get into a kid’s mind of helping him grow. I’m just grateful for anybody that takes time out of their day to reach out to my kid regarding recruitment but they’re still helping him grow as a person on the court or any information they can provide him which I think is invaluable.”
The amount of detail from Musselman about Arkansas’ nutrition program caught Nunez’s attention.
“He sent the video of nutrition,” Nunez said. “It was the nutritionist speaking about how they feed the kids. All the details and then he’ll follow it up with an actual text message. He just doesn’t send the video. He follows up with verbiage and signaling out how it would help Austin in his physical development.”
“Instead of sending a random text that might just be sent to multiple people, he’s a little bit more detailed on it. It’s impressive considering you don’t get a lot of that from a lot of head coaches.”
The father and son also like Musselman and his staff’s NBA background. In addition to Musselman, Patrick, assistants Corey Williams, Clay Moser and director of student-athlete development Earl Boykins all have NBA experience.
“To be honest, I was blown away by the high level of assistants that are there,” Nunez said. “To have someone that’s played at the highest level because it’s every kid’s ambition to play at the highest level. Do they all get there? One percent get there right? And I understand that was a director and as a parent. I’m realistic . That’s always the ultimate goal but if you can surround my kid with as much information and people that have seen it and done it. It becomes one of the parts, not the main part but it’s one of the parts you look for in a school.”
National recruiting analyst Van Coleman of Nothing But Net rates Nunez a 4-star prospect.