Sammie Yeanay, a player the Gators have been involved with essentially since the current staff got to Gainesville, will be announcing his decision on Friday, November 3 according to 247 Sports.
A 4-star, Yeanay is currently ranked 87th in the class of 2024. He is originally from Gainesville and when Golden came to the University of Florida and wanted to lock down local recruiting–he immediately started his push for Yeanay. This past summer Yeanay left Gainesville and The Rock School to head west to Arizona where he currently plays for Compass Prep, a premier program who plays a national schedule.
Yeanay’s final five schools are Florida, Arizona State, Ohio, Washington State, and Utah.
Florida was one of the first schools to show serious interest in Florida, as was Ohio who he has still kept in the mix the entire way. Moving to Arizona only heightened the interest of west coast schools, with Arizona State now having an opportunity to keep a particularly close eye on him.
The announcement will happen live on the 247 Sports Youtube channel at 3:30 ET on November 3rd. Florida has been considered a leader for much of the recruitment, though there have been questions about whether or not Florida’s interest has cooled. Arizona State, now his “hometown” school for the time being, also is thought to sit in a good place.
Arizona and Houston showed interest, but ultimately didn’t stay in the hunt for Yeanay’s services.
Known for his competitiveness, Yeanay wanted to make his decision before his high school season started so that he could spend this season fully focused on bringing a championship to Compass Prep while also working on his development.
Yeanay is a 6’7”, 230 pound forward who plays the game with ferocity. Early in his high school career he was known for his monster double digit rebounding games, and more recently he has shown an ability to shoot that three that would heighten his possible ceiling as a player. Some people think he could eventually play the “3,” though most think he is largely going to be a frontcourt player using his strength near the rim as well as the three-point shot to stretch out opposing bigs.
Florida is currently without a frontcourt recruit in 2024, and Yeanay brings some of the skills Golden has been looking for at the power forward position–big time rebounding, and shooting.
Generally Yeanay has been keeping things quiet about his recruitment and there are no clear favorites–so this will be a fascinating decision. Yeanay was set to make an official visit to Florida in the fall which sources say didn’t happen so Florida might be out of the race, but given the current frontcourt recruiting landscape the Gators could make another push.