MISSOULA — The Montana men's basketball team announced the four newest Class of 2020 signings on Friday.
Brandon Whitney of Mission Hills, California, Robby Beasley, of Dublin, California, and Josh Bannan and Hunter Clarke of Australia all made their commitments official this week after signing letters of intent to join Montana's basketball team.
Whitney is a 6-foot-1 captain point guard at Bishop Alemany High School. Last year as a junior, Whitney averaged 17.8 points, 4.2 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game. Whitney chose UM over California State University Northridge and interest from Southern Utah.
Beasley, a 6-3 guard from the Bay Area, was a freshman at Dublin High School when Montana was recruiting current Grizzly Timmy Falls, who was a senior in high school at the time at Dublin. Associate head coach Chris Cobb took notice of Beasley and soon after the UM coaching staff offered him a scholarship that same season.
Beasley, a guard, is listed as a three-star recruit by ESPN and Rivals and chose Montana over offers from Nevada, San Francisco and UC Davis. In three years at Dublin, Beasley averaged 17.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game. He is currently spending his senior year at Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon, California.
Bannan, a 6-8 forward, hails from Victoria, Australia while Clarke, a 6-5 guard, was born in Australia's capital of Canberra. Both are teammates and roommates at the NBA Global Academy at Basketball Australia's Centre of Excellence. Clarke's older brother, Anderson Clarke, is in his second season as a graduate manager with the Grizzlies. Clarke also spent four years living in California when his father was an assistant coach at St. Mary's.
Bannan and Clarke compete for the Centre of Excellence which is part of NBL1, a semi-pro Australian basketball league. Bannan chose Montana over offers from UC Riverside and UC San Diego. Both played for Australia's U17 team in 2018 while Clarke competed for the U20 national team this past summer.
Clarke averaged 10.2 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game in 12 games in 2019 at the Global Academy. Bannan averaged 13.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game.
As it stands, Montana has all of its scholarships filled for the 2020-21 season with these four signings. Currently, the Grizzlies only have 12 of their 13 scholarships filled this season and Kendal Manuel, Sayeed Pridgett and grad transfer Jared Samuelson will all exhaust their eligibility after this season.
