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The NDSU coaching staff added another player to the 2017 recruiting class, receiving a verbal commitment this week from Chris Quayle, a 6’5” combo guard, from Central Wyoming College. Quayle is originally from Riverton and was selected as Wyoming’s Mr. Basketball in 2015. His father, Dick, was his high school coach.

This was Quayle’s second year in the program at CWC, but chose to ‘grayshirt’ his freshman season, which is almost unheard of at the junior college level. He practiced but didn’t play his first season to develop more physically. That meant Quayle’s “NCAA clock” didn’t start until his sophomore year, giving him three years of eligibility at NDSU. He told me he was only 6’3”, 150 pounds after his senior year of high school and shot up two inches and added 25 pounds the past two years.

Academically, Quayle is already several credits ahead thanks to taking some college level courses in high school and finishing prerequisites at CWC. He said NDSU coaches first saw him play at the Region 9 Tournament earlier this month. Idaho State and Utah Valley were also recruiting him, along with 9-10 Division II programs.

“I just feel like I fit in well because of the culture of the program Coach Richman runs,” Quayle said on a phone call with me. “I try to get everyone involved and really liked all players I met.”

 He plans to major in Finance at NDSU and will arrive in June to start working out with the team.

Quayle’s numbers from this past year will not blow you away (10 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists per game on average) but he has a lot of the intangibles that Dave Richman loves. He comes from a program at Central Wyoming, whose coach Pat Rafferty used terms like “competitiveness, character, integrity and toughness” while describing the new Bison commit.

There was some question on his height so Richman actually went back-to-back with Quayle on his visit and was nearly the same height as his future head coach.

“I was sitting next to Coach Richman and he said he wanted to see how tall I was,” Quayle added with a laugh. “Tyson Ward said I was almost even with him (Richman claims to be 6’6”) so that settled it.”