Junior forward Camden Heide\u2019s talent on the basketball court was never in question. As an eighth grader, he cracked Wayzata High School\u2019s varsity roster before leading the Trojans to a Minnesota state championship as a junior.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, several years later, Heide\u2019s two-year stint at Purdue has come to an end as he arrives on the Forty Acres as the newest addition to the Longhorns\u2019 roster.<\/p>\n
The summer before Heide\u2019s junior year of high school, Texas head coach Sean Miller, who was Arizona\u2019s head coach at the time, gave the young forward his second college offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although Miller\u2019s philosophy on the players he recruits has changed since his days at Arizona, Heide still fits the build for what the veteran head coach wants in his program \u2013 knowledge of the process and experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things we love about him is just who he has played against in the big moments that he\u2019s been in,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If experience in big-time moments is what Miller is looking for, Heide has already seen the top of the college basketball world, being a part of Purdue\u2019s run to the national championship game in 2024 and a major part of its Sweet Sixteen appearance last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of Heide\u2019s best basketball comes out in March. He put together his first career double-double in Purdue\u2019s first round matchup against High Point, along with other solid performances against Southern California in the Big 10 tournament and its loss to Houston in the Sweet Sixteen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experience playing in a national championship is something that not many people get to say that they\u2019ve done before,\u201d Heide said. \u201cI kind of know what it takes (to get there) \u2026 I think that it just kind of is something that I can kind of take with me and bring to this team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The decision to come to Texas was a tough one for Heide. Purdue was his father\u2019s alma mater, and he stayed with the program for three seasons, redshirting his freshman season after sustaining a foot injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wanting more in his college basketball career after starting just eight games and playing a minimal role on the Boilermakers\u2019 offense, Heide wants to have a more impactful role on the team, something Purdue could not offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just kind of wanted a bigger role,\u201d Heide said. \u201cI wanted to be more involved with the offense and kind of use my athleticism and skills to kind of be able to move forward in my progression as a player.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Miller has harped on wanting players who have experience and know the expectations of what it takes to be successful in college basketball, but a major piece to his philosophy is catching players at the right time in their careers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt used to be if you\u2019re at a program for a couple of years, and then you start to see that switch, or that click in their junior year and senior year,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI think we\u2019re getting (Camden) at a great point in his career. \u2026 He came here to have the opportunity to maybe expand a little bit from what he did at Purdue, and hopefully, we have that opportunity for him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heide has the opportunity for a breakout junior season with a team full of unknown expectations. If he can harness some of that March magic in the regular season, who knows how dangerous the Longhorns can be in Miller\u2019s first season in Austin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Junior forward Camden Heide\u2019s talent on the basketball court was never in question. As an eighth grader, he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":255434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-255433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115269041626672991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}