In the history of NCAA basketball, rarely have we ever seen an Indian American play Power-5 basketball. Of those, I can think of only a handful who were scholarship players. And of that small bunch, there really is only one I know of who was ranked in the top 100 in high school — James Blackmon Jr. Although much of the college basketball community knows his name, few even within the Indian community know he’s half Indian.
Apart from Blackmon, Ryan Agarwal may be the highest profile Indian American basketball player of all time. As the No. 89 recruit in the country with offers from at least a dozen D1 schools, he announced today that he will be taking his talents to Stanford.
Ryan is someone who is obviously Indian-appearing. And when he takes the court at Stanford in two years, everyone at Maples Pavillion will be aware of that. Stanford is a program that will now be in the national spotlight, with Zaire Williams and Isa Silva, two of the most hyped former recruits in the country. They will be no doubt a regular on national television.
And with that, Ryan will have the opportunity to open a door for Indian American hoopers in a fashion that no one before him had the chance to do. Just from watching his commitment video, I think it’s clear that he understands the community that he can lift up with him.
“To set an example for a whole heritage and prove that we can do it too,” Agarwal said in his commitment video. “To add some more culture to what the game already has.”
I have no doubt that hundreds of Indian American kids and their families will flock to Palo Alto to see him play, much like was the case for the Japanese American community during the Natalie Nakase era at UCLA. He can be the light at the end of the tunnel for so many kids that felt like they never had anyone to look up to.
What’s special about him is that he’s not Sim Bhullar. He’s not Satnam Singh. He is this skinny Indian dude who myself and I guarantee thousands of others can themselves in. And that makes all the difference.
And in a funny way, he’s still living out the stereotype by choosing every aunty’s favorite school.
