Cats hosting a pair of 2019 official visitors

Northwestern’s football team will play in prime time on Saturday night against Akron. But the Wildcats’ basketball team will have a couple prospects in the stands that they hope will lead the program back into the spotlight next season.

Northwestern is hosting two of its top 2019 targets for official visits this weekend. Both Daniel Buie and Jared Jones will arrive in Evanston on Friday and stay through Sunday. In addition, 6-foot-5 point guard Ethan Morton, one of the top 50 players in the 2020 class, will also be on campus Saturday One of the events on the itinerary is attending Northwestern's football game against the Zips at Ryan Field.

Here are thumbnail sketches of each player.

Buie is a 6-foot-2 guard from Troy, N.Y., who played last year at Gould Academy, a prep school in Maine. Buie saw his stock rise after his performance at the Adidas Summer Championships in July, when he averaged 10.2 points. 2.6 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game to lead Mass Rivals to a victory in the title game.

Buie picked up his offer from Northwestern on Aug. 1 and this is his first official visit. He also has offers from St. Bonaventure, UMass and others, and has interest from the likes of Pitt and Penn State.

Northwestern sees Buie as a combo guard who can play both the point and shooting guard positions.

Jones is a three-star, 6-foot-9 power forward who told WildcatReport earlier this week, "I love Northwestern. They're at the top of my list right now." That was just a few hours after an in-home visit from head coach Chris Collins and assistants Emmanuel Dildy and Brian James on Sunday night.

Jones, from Powder Springs (Ga.) McEachern, is a self-described "stretch 4" who has the versatility to play face-up or with his back to the basket.

Long and athletic with obvious tangibles, Jones was once rated as a four-star, Rivals150 prospect. He committed to Auburn in September of 2016, at the start of his sophomore year. He then decommitted and reopened his recruitment in June of 2017, at the end of that same year. He has upcoming official visits scheduled to Georgia, Minnesota and Mississippi State.

Jones announced his Top 10 schools last week.

In addition to Buie and Jones, four-star 2020 guard Ethan Morton will also be on campus for an unofficial visit.

The 6-foot-5 point guard from Butler (Pa.) is the No. 47 player in the nation for his class and already has offers from 21 programs, including Northwestern. Indiana, Iowa, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin from the Big Ten have also thrown their hats into Morton’s ring, as have Virginia, West Virginia, Oregon, Xavier, Butler, Creighton and Stanford, among others.

A tall, agile point man with a strong long-range shot, the battle for Morton figures to be fierce.