In Eastern Michigan’s 88-83 loss to No. 22 Michigan in Detroit on Friday night, Emoni Bates looked like the player who’d once been hyped as a future NBA star when he scored 30 points and nearly led his team to the upset.
Bates, the No. 3 recruit in the 2021 class who played at Memphis last season, made seven of his first nine shots (12-for-19 overall) against the Wolverines in his first game since transferring.
During his sophomore season in high school, Bates was widely regarded as one of America’s top recruits, regardless of class. Once hailed as the next Kevin Durant in grassroots circles, Bates reclassified from the 2022 class, where he was the top recruit according to ESPN’s rankings, into the 2021 class (No. 3 per ESPN) before he signed with Penny Hardaway and Memphis months before the 2021-22 season.
But Bates, who was just 17 years old at the start of his freshman campaign, struggled in his first season of college basketball — 9.7 PPG, 39% from the field, 2.3 turnovers per game — and subsequently decided to transfer. He landed at Eastern Michigan in his hometown of Ypsilanti, Michigan, mostly viewed as a fallen star who had failed to live up to the one-and-done hype and lost most of his luster in the eyes of NBA executives.
Then, he was arrested on two felony charges related to a gun that was found in a vehicle he was driving near campus in September. A difficult chapter for the 6-foot-9 talent became more ominous after Eastern Michigan suspended him from all team activities as a result.
But Bates was reinstated to the team last month after prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against him. Defense attorney Steve Haney said the vehicle and the gun didn’t belong to Bates.
Eastern Michigan coach Stan Heath did not play Bates in the team’s season-opening game on Monday against Division II Wayne State, and the former Michigan State assistant would not say why he sat the sophomore.
Against Michigan on Friday, Bates displayed some of the dazzling traits…
