While it may be the offseason for college basketball, recruiting is still in full force. Most notably, the class of 2025 will be making their college decisions in the months to come. One of those top prospects, Nikolas Khamenia of Harvard-Westlake High School in California, recently narrowed his list down to five schools including hometown UCLA as per Joe Tipton of On3 Sports.
Nikolas Khamenia narrowed his list down to UCLA, Duke, North Carolina, Gonzaga and Arizona. Out of those five schools, Gonzaga is the only one that he has taken a visit to so far as per Brandon Jenkins of 247Sports. Following him cutting down his list, he has visits scheduled to Arizona (Aug. 31), North Carolina (Sept. 6) and Duke (Sept. 13).
Khamenia is a versatile wing who has good size and length and is able to handle the ball and make plays off the dribble as well as space the floor and shoot from three-point range. He’s also a talented playmaker. For the majority of sites that rank high school basketball players, Khamenia is considered a five-star recruit.
Nikolas Khamenia is one of the top players in Class of 2025
Playing at Harvard-Westlake, a school that has produced quite a few NCAA and NBA players over the years, Nikolas Khamenia has steadily risen near the top of the rankings for the Class of 2025.
This summer, Khamenia was selected to Team USA’s roster for the 2024 FIBA U18 Men’s AmeriCup. He’s been a key player for a Harvard-Westlake team that’s won back to back CIF Open Division championships. He developed naturally, beginning with a small roll off the bench as a freshman to becoming a standout by his junior year.
Khamenia detailed why these five schools made the cut for his top choices as per Jenkins.
“I like my relationship with the coaches and my comfort with who they are and how they run their systems,” Khamenia said. “I am close with those coaches. I do Zooms, text them day in and day out, and they show up to my games. I chose the schools based on how hard they are recruiting me and where they see me in the future.”
This past season, Khamenia played with three other NCAA Division 1 players in Trent Perry (UCLA), Robert Hinton (Harvard) and Christian Horry (UCLA). Currently, the only player in the NBA from Harvard-Westlake is Johnny Juzang of the Utah Jazz.
As the 2024-25 high school basketball season begins, Khamenia’s recruitment is sure to be one to watch.