Colben Landrew received a football scholarship offer from Alabama when he was a high school sophomore and he didn’t bat an eye.
He was so focused on basketball, his first love, that he gave up his wide receiver gloves, moved out of Alabaster, Ala., and relocated to the Atlanta area, where hoops was more of a priority. He left a football factory at Thompson High to join a basketball power at Wheeler, where he’d develop under six-time Georgia state champion coach Larry Thompson and see his recruiting stock shoot up.
Narrowing down a long list of college offers, the 6-foot-5 wing wanted to make a similar move: Find a school up north that loves its basketball.
So when UConn called and offered him a scholarship in late July, he lit up.
“I wanted that offer a lot,” Landrew told The Courant by phone after putting on a red Huskies hat to make his decision official on Wednesday. “Once I got the offer, I just knew. I had a gut feeling like I love this school. And then when I took my visit it was just perfect, man. I just seen how Coach (Dan Hurley) pushes his players and I just felt like I need that.”
His mother, Stacey, a former college basketball player herself at Southwest Mississippi Community College, was smitten when she first walked in the doors of the basketball facility.
“I’m like, this is really like the Basketball Capital of the World, it really is,” she said. “To get to see all the different layouts, the trophies and how the fans are really big on the sport there. I don’t even have a favorite part, I loved everything about it from the time we arrived until the time we left.”
Thompson 2026 6-foot-5 wide receiver, Colben Landrew @colben_landrew fights to bring in the TD reception.
He holds multiple basketball offers, including offers from Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss. pic.twitter.com/EBfQJoEvfD
— Touchdown Alabama Recruiting (@TDARecruiting) September 29, 2023
Building toughness on the gridiron
Landrew started playing football his sophomore year because he could.
Playing for a nationally ranked program at Thompson, he was a natural, big-bodied receiver. By the end of his first and only football season, he caught 24 passes for 492 yards and 10 touchdowns, was named first team all-county by the Shelby County Reporter and collected offers from SEC powers like Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss.
“I like football, but I love basketball,” he said.
And football was taking away from his time on the hardwood.
But his time in pads, high-pointing passes and hurdling defenders translated as he made basketball his sole focus. And the toughness, evident in any of his highlight clips, was certainly a trait that attracted Hurley and his staff.
“I feel like football gave me the ability to be tougher in basketball, so I transferred that and then just put it all into one,” he said. “Now I pretty much can kind of do everything, score at three levels, rebound, defend, me being tough just gives me an advantage for a lot of things on the court.”
Like most UConn commits, including four-star guard Junior County, who was first to make his pledge in the 2026 class, Landrew pointed to the practice he was able to watch during his visit in the first weekend of October as what swayed him. He could see himself fitting right in, taking to the demanding coaching and getting better.
“It was just high-energy, electric in there,” he said. “Coach Hurley, he was on 10 the whole practice, he didn’t let up not one time. It was just crazy, and I felt like he didn’t sugarcoat anything because I was on the visit, he was acting the same, how he usually acts every day. The players were telling me, ‘This is what you’re gonna get if you come here.’”
“This is someone your child will be around, so you want to make sure that he’ll be getting what is needed,” Stacey said. “I love how the coaches discipline their players, they hold them accountable and at the same time they love them and they’re just good people. That’s something that you want your child to be a part of.”
pic.twitter.com/l0wuSHJBfi
— Colben Landrew (@colben_landrew) July 16, 2025
Rapid rise onto UConn’s radar
Landrew scored the final 10 points to seal Wheeler’s 61-56 win over Newton – Stephon Castle’s alma mater – in the Class 6A Georgia state championship game in March. At that point, he had heard from a few high-major schools and received offers, but he was still flying under the radar from a ranking standpoint.
Nicknamed “Baby Melo,” Landrew felt his recruitment really start to take off in June once his plane landed from Treviso, Italy, where he was invited to take part in the Adidas Eurocamp. His 3SSB Select team, made up of other high-profile prospects, won all three of its games and he averaged 16.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists, shooting 53.3% both from the field (16-for-30) and from beyond the arc (8-for-15).
He continued to have success on the Adidas 3SSB grassroots circuit with Game Elite – on a roster that included players like Caleb Holt, a top-five 2026 recruit, top-100 Georgia Tech commit Moustapha Diop and his Wheeler point guard, Kevin Savage III, who is a top-50 junior. Landrew averaged 15.1 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.5 steals per game for Game Elite while shooting 56% from the field, 85.9% from the foul line and 34.4% from beyond the arc – an area where he is continuing to improve.
His team-high 16 points helped win that championship, too.
Suddenly he was a top-20 player in his class and a proven winner. And winners are attracted to winners.
“Before I got up (to UConn) I knew (Hurley) won the back-to-back national championships so that stood out,” Landrew said, “and then me, I’m a winner, so I just wanted to play for a winning coach and a winning program.”
Landrew cut his list down to five schools: UConn, Louisville, Purdue, Texas A&M and Mississippi State before his announcement in front of a large crowd inside the Wheeler gym on Wednesday. But after the trip to Storrs, meeting Hurley and his staff and watching their whole operation, there was a strong sense of where he would end up.
“Once you really get to know Coach Hurley, I mean he’s a great person,” Stacey said. “I love him, I love his personality, everything about him. And he’s genuine. I love the fact that he don’t sugarcoat, he tells you what you need to hear and I love the honesty about him. … Colben, I feel like he can help the team and do what’s needed, but I also know what he needs and I think the staff will be able to give him what he needs.”
