Notre Dame Basketball

2023 Stretch-4 JP Estrella Impresses Notre Dame, Others

By Christian McCollum

May 1, 2022

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JP Estrella‍ hasn’t even had to be at his best in order to impress college coaches recently.

“Even in games where we feel like as coaches, he played decently well, but not amazingly well, he had a lot of people coming away saying, 'Oh my gosh. How special is he?'” Middlesex Magic head coach Mike Crotty said of the 2023 forward his team’s hot start to the Under Armour Association’s opening sessions.

“We're like, 'OK, well, we're holding him to a high standard and even if we didn't think it was his best game, it's pretty obvious that people who are great at their jobs are seeing a lot in him.’”

Estrella earned offers from schools like Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, Wake Forest, Maryland, Cal and Xavier based on his play in Indianapolis earlier this month to go with offers he already had from schools like Boston College, Iowa, Marquette, Penn State, Providence, Syracuse, Tennessee and Harvard among others.

He’s continued to see that list grow to include schools like Illinois, MIami, Iona and UMass.

“As a person, he's smart, funny, caring, unselfish,” Crotty said. “He's a guy everyone roots for and a guy who's more excited about his teammates’ success than his own; wonderful personality.

“As a player, 6-11, long, bouncy, graceful, fast, skilled. He works like he's 5-11 and has to prove it every single day. Loves to play, sky's the limit for him. It really, really is. He's a very rangy and mobile and capable forward.”

Estrella was “very excited” to add the offer from Mike Brey after having been in touch with Ryan Humphrey and Anthony Solomon.

“I think he's super excited about all of them,” Crotty said. “That's another thing, he's just a humble kid with a chip on his shoulder. When you're getting high-major offers, he's excited about all of them and genuinely excited.

“Obviously, Notre Dame is a special school, great program. He's a Maine kid like (incoming Irish freshman) Dom Campbell from last year, so they know each other pretty well and is one of the ways we got connected. I think that's kind of a neat connection for him.”

“To have Coach Brey come see him, really love him and pull the trigger, he was very excited.”

It didn’t take Brey very long to realize he wanted to offer.

“It was pretty quick,” said Crotty. “He loved him.

“JP's really good. He does a lot of does a lot of really good things. Mike wasn't alone in that one.”