KU, MU, K-State target Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, son of Lester Earl, leaves Miege

Over the course of the next several weeks, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl will be one of the most heavily sought-after high school basketball players in the country.

But his first significant school choice came a year early, and it will take him away from Kansas City.

Robinson-Earl has decided to leave Bishop Miege in favor of transferring to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., for his senior year of high school, he confirmed to The Star in a text message.

Robinson-Earl, the son of former KU and LSU basketball player Lester Earl, played his first three years of high school at Bishop Miege, leading the Stags to three consecutive Kansas Class 4A Division I state championships. A 6-9 power forward, he is ranked as the No. 14 recruit in the rising senior class, per Rivals.com. As a junior at Miege, he posted 21.9 points and 8.1 rebounds per game while shooting 68 percent from the floor.

Robinson-Earl has more than a dozen Division I scholarship offers, including Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State. He was recently part of the USA Basketball under-18 men’s national team, coached by KU’s Bill Self, that won gold this month at the FIBA Americas U18 Championships in Canada. He scored 14 points in the championship game.

“When (KU) coach (Bill) Self offered me, that was a big deal,” Robinson-Earl told The Star in an interview in February. “That means something because my dad played there and my mom went there.”

But he added that he would not pick a school solely because his parents attended it, a decision fully supported by his mom and dad. North Carolina coach Roy Williams, who coached Lester Earl at KU, has also offered Robinson-Earl.

“I’m not trying to be the next Lester Earl,” Robinson-Earl said earlier this year. “I’m trying to be the first Jeremiah Robinson-Earl.”

Kansas has previously tapped into IMG Academy in the Self era, landing recruits Silvio De Sousa and Jamari Traylor.

This story was originally published June 23, 2018 at 5:27 PM with the headline "KU, MU, K-State target Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, son of Lester Earl, leaves Miege."