'There is no 1 best part of his game'; Purdue commit Raleigh Burgess helps Aviators fly

One of the best basketball players to ever come through Sycamore High School just wants to be one of the guys when it comes to leadership.

Raleigh Burgess, a 6-foot-11 center headed to play for one of the nation’s top college hoops programs, Purdue, has helped the Aviators through a recent rough patch. Sycamore is 14-3 and 10-3 in the Greater Miami Conference, in first place and a game ahead of Lakota West and Hamilton with five games left in the regular season.

“He goes as hard as anybody,” said Sycamore head coach Tim Austing. “When he’s in the drills, he gives it everything he’s got. And if he’s not in the drills, he encourages everybody. We have great senior leadership and Raleigh leads the charge all the time. This group does a great job. It’s one of the best locker rooms I’ve ever had.”

Longtime Oak Hills head coach Mike Price also coached Burgess in AAU ball three years ago. Price started working with Burgess back then and found him very coachable and eager to learn.

“At that time, he was very raw in talent and skill but he was at the top of his class in enthusiasm, energy and being a great teammate,” Price said. “During his AAU time with us, he was a positive role model for being a great teammate. He attended all practices and tournaments. He worked hard, practiced with energy, and constantly encouraged his teammates. He was an instant leader and helped that team improve very quickly and experience many successes that season.”

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Here are a few more things to know about the nationally ranked center.

1. Burgess has the Aviators in the hunt for a GMC title

Burgess is averaging 13.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.3 blocks for an Aviators squad that was flying high with a 13-1 record before losing their next two games. Sycamore righted the ship with an overtime home win over Mason Feb. 2.

The losing streak included a 35-32 loss to Price’s Oak Hills team and a resounding 27-point defeat (58-31) to Princeton.

Sycamore shared the league title in 2022 and 2013 but has not won it outright since 1997.

“The season is going pretty well so far,” Burgess said. “Obviously, this week we’ve fallen a little bit off track, but yesterday’s practice and today’s practice are going to get us back on the right track and hopefully we’ll be one of the top teams in the city going into the tournament.”

Austing said Burgess helped keep everyone positive as they experienced life in the Greater Miami Conference. The team felt no extra pressure to not lose three in a row, Austing said.

“It’s the kind of year that it’s a really good league,” he said. “There are no great teams and no really bad teams. We just try to win every game we can because no one is going undefeated in that league. We had a really rough stretch. We didn’t play as hard as we like to. Even (against Mason), we didn’t play our best basketball but we played hard.”

2. He chose Purdue for academics

You can’t teach height, but Burgess’s work ethic has helped him become one of the top big-man recruits in the country. The website 247sports.com lists him as the No. 4 player in Ohio and No. 21 center in the country, 11 spots behind Winton Woods star and UC recruit Tyler McKinley.

He will join a Purdue program that will lose Zach Edey after this season. The 7-foot center is a returning All-American and potential national player of the year as he leads the Boilermakers to a possible national championship run.

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“It’s definitely encouraging knowing that Purdue has such a great history with big men,” Burgess said.

Burgess committed to Purdue not to follow in Edey’s footsteps, but because of Purdue’s high academic reputation.

“It was a lot of things,” Burgess said. “A combination of great academics, great coaching staff and the fit with the team overall. No other school matched that.”

Said Price: “Raleigh is an excellent student-athlete. When Raleigh and his mother started researching colleges, they researched only very good academic and basketball schools: Stanford, Purdue, Virginia, etc. Education is very important to Raleigh and his family.”

3. He's a versatile player

Burgess said he’s better at defense than offense, but opposing coaches say he’s great on offense.

“We’d love to have him,” Mason head coach Adam Toohey said. “He’s not just a big person, but he’s a good player as well. Sometimes you have guys who are good because they’re big, they’re skilled or athletic. They’re only one of the three, but he has all of them put together. The things he can do for his size are impressive. You don’t see many 17- or 18-year-olds his size who are as coordinated as he is."

Said Price: “As he developed, he developed very good footwork, good hands, a very good shot, very unique ball handling skills for a young man of his height, and most important: The confidence to dominate. There is no one best part of his game: He rebounds. scores in different ways, loves to pass, can basket protect and move his feet to defend the ball and movement, and genuinely share in his teammate's successes and good plays.”

4. He's led a young team back to the top

Besides Burgess, Sycamore’s top veteran is guard Tariq Kimbrough, who averages 9.6 points per game.

Sycamore graduated four double-digit scorers from last season but it has not hurt them.

“We’re really good defensively,” Burgess said. “We have a lot of athletes, smart athletes. We need to play good defense. It’s been a little different because some of these guys haven’t played with me before. They’re getting used to how I play."

Mason's Toohey is impressed with the way the Aviators have remained contenders.

“We thought they would drop off,” Toohey said. “That’s the coach (Tim Austing) doing a great job and they’re buying in. They play tough defense. They have a lot of guys who can guard really well and they do a great job of sticking with the game plan.”

5. Burgess having fun in his final weeks

Burgess enjoys playing basketball and is soaking in every last moment as a Sycamore Aviator.

“I think it’s just how fun it is,” Burgess said. “I get to come here and do something I enjoy which is something not a lot of people can say. It’s redeeming to come here and play with your team.

“As the season is starting to come to an end, it crosses my mind more and more. Coach talks about how we have so many games left, at home. It all becomes more and more important. That has been our goal from the beginning, to make a run and win the league.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio boys basketball: 5 things about Purdue commit Raleigh Burgess