Griz basketball grabs commitment from 2023 guard Chase Henderson

When Chase Henderson was in the eighth grade, his dad Courtney sat him down for a talk about his athletic future and how it intersected cruelly with reality.

“He didn’t actually make me quit (football), but he just told me, at your size, you need to put your all into it,” Chase Henderson said. “Because I’m not going to be 6-6 and be able to just jump over everybody, so I have to put the work in. After that, I quit football and started focusing, grinding on my game.”

That commitment to basketball helped make Henderson the second known recruit in Montana’s 2023 recruiting class. He announced his commitment to the Griz on Twitter on Thursday.

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Henderson, a guard for Des Moines Hoover High School in Iowa, averaged 23 points per game last season as a junior.

Here are five other things to know about the Grizzlies’ latest recruit.

• Courtney Henderson’s reality check wasn’t the only boost he’s given his son’s career. Courtney, a former player at Southern University in Louisiana, has been the head coach at Des Moines Hoover since Chase was five years old. The family moved away from Louisiana shortly after Hurricane Katrina and also spent time in Alabama before Courtney got a job in Iowa, first at Waterloo West and then at Hoover.

“It definitely has its pros and cons, but for the most part we’ve created some great memories,” Chase said about playing for his dad. “We hope to win the state championship this upcoming year to cap it off, but it’s been some great memories and a great ride I’ll definitely remember for the rest of my life.”

• Henderson will be the second player from Iowa to play for one of Travis Decuire’s Griz teams. Jack Wetzel, from Cedar Rapids, played in 10 games and scored 12 points for Montana a year ago, but won’t return for the 2022-23 season. “I went on a visit in June and me and my family absolutely fell in love with the campus, the mountains because, you know, Iowa is kind of flat a little bit,” Henderson said. “My mom was a little worried (about moving so far away) but my dad was all in just because of the relationship he developed with coach Trav. But now my mom’s obviously fine with it.”

• Because of the lack of top-level AAU teams in Iowa, Henderson plays his summer ball with Supreme Nebraska, a team built around kids from Omaha and Lincoln. “It was about a two-hour drive for me, which wasn’t bad. I would just go out there and stay with a teammate,” Henderson said about getting to practice. “It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, because I created a lot of new friends, and just the places that we played, the coaches that we played in front of, the people that we played was just amazing.”

• Henderson provided the scouting report, calling himself a “scoring point guard.” “I do go left a lot,” he said, although he’s right-handed. “So maybe try to force me right. I’ve been trying to work on that. I love to get in the paint, get paint touches, whether that’s a bucket for myself or a bucket for a teammate, a dump-down or a kick-out for a 3. I just love to get in the paint, because high-percentage shots come when you get paint touches.”

• Griz assistant Jay Flores first reached out to Henderson during the first Division I live evaluation period in April. “I do remember he said he’d recruit me the hardest out of any school that was recruiting me, and he didn’t lie,” Henderson said. “They all recruited me very hard and just made me feel like I was one of them.” Henderson also had offers from South Dakota, South Dakota State, UC Santa Barbara and Boston University. He made the call to Decuire to tell him about his commitment about a week before he officially revealed his decision on Twitter. “I’ve worked my whole life to play at the highest level of college basketball. This is my dream, so to just achieve that, I’m just really happy,” Henderson said. “I felt like I could fit into a program like that. And we’d love to be a part of a program like that … so I can’t wait to get up there with them.”

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