The recruiting process for men’s basketball this year has two parties very excited. The first is BGSU. The second is new recruit Ryan Sims.

Sims, a product of Snider High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, will bring a well-rounded skill set to the Falcon basketball team in the 2006-07 season.

“I’m a floor general,” Sims said. “I won’t push people around but I always want them to play on a high level.”

Ryan’s high school coach, Ray Sims, is also his father. Coach Sims has been heading up the Snider varsity basketball team for nine years, and just last year went 18-4 and won the SAC division title. He knows the kind of talent that his son brings to the floor.

“He’s very athletic,” coach Sims said. “He has a lot of quickness. He jumps and shoots well.”

The 6-foot-2-inch guard has put up some good numbers over his high school career. In his junior year at Snider, he put up a very respectable 17 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds a game, personal stats that eventually earned him first-team All State honors. As a senior this year, he is one of the leaders of his team, which has a record of 15-7.

When choosing BGSU, a number of factors came into play for both Ryan and Ray Sims with Indiana ties being one of them. According to Ray, he actually grew up with BGSU assistant men’s basketball coach Artie Pepelea, as they lived in the same county and have kept in touch ever since.

“Relationships definitely played a role,” coach Sims said.

Another important factor for Ryan, and for Ryan’s parents especially, was education.

“When we first talked to Dan (Dakich), he impressed that academics were the most important,” the elder Sims said. “We talked about education first. My wife and I are both educators, so of course academics were important.”

Also, both Ryan and Ray liked the straightforwardness of Dakich and Pepelea.

“I’ve been coaching a long time,” coach Sims said. “They were very straightforward from the beginning. They have good disciplinary ways and a good approach to the game.”

After talking with the coaches, the Sims’ set up both an unofficial and official campus visit. It took Ryan about a week to decide to come to BGSU, and the official visit was what made up his mind.

“I felt the most comfortable on the BGSU campus,” Sims said. “Also, coach Dakich was up front with me and we get along well.”

The opportunity to not only play division one college basketball but to also play in the Mid-American Conference are very exciting aspects for both Ryan and his dad.

“The MAC is a conference like no other,” Sims said. “At the end of the day, no conference is better than any other conference. They’re all competing for the same thing.”

Although he hasn’t even graduated high school yet, Sims already has goals in mind for next year.

“The main thing is that I want to play on a team that wins the MAC, and eventually goes on to the NCAA tournament,” Sims said. “I want to get my teammates pumped up and hopefully win something.”

But he knows that the wins won’t come without hard work. His soon-to-be coaches have already given him ideas of what to work on in the off-season.

“They told me to start lifting and getting stronger,” Sims said. “They said that my quickness is already there but it would be even better if I started getting stronger.”

Look out for Sims in 2007.