SLEEPY EYE — Sleepy Eye High School senior Kegan Heiderscheidt had his list of potential schools for academics and college basketball narrowed down to three choices. All along, though, there was only one school he truly wanted to go to.

Heiderscheidt decided to play college basketball at Division II Southwest Minnesota State University. He picked SMSU over Division II Bemidji State University and Division III Bethany Lutheran College and he wants to major in exercise science and be a chiropractor when he’s done with college.

“They had been recruiting me, they’ve shown interest since the beginning of last year, so they just kept in contact,” Heiderscheidt said. “I went to a couple games and I went on my visit to Bemidji and they offered me, so I shot [SMSU coach Brad] Bigler a text because he told me he would like to know if I was coming down to a decision because he obviously wanted to be a part of that.

“I texted him and he said yeah, that’s [BSU] a great school, but we’d love to have you on campus as soon as possible,” he said. “I went [to SMSU] for a visit, he offered me while I was there, and over the weekend I talked it over with my family and we just thought it was the best for me. It’s been my dream school for a couple of years now, so when they offered me, I was really excited.”

Heiderscheidt, a 6-foot-7 inch guard, averaged 18.3 points and 6.8 rebounds in his junior season at Sleepy Eye. His career totals include 1,058 points, 412 rebounds, 256 assists and 178 blocks.

Heiderscheidt will also get a chance to play alongside former Tomahawk Conference standouts Dunwa Omot of Minnesota Valley Lutheran and Jon Zinniel of New Ulm Cathedral. Both are freshmen at SMSU.

“It’s awesome, that’s been in my mind this whole recruiting process,” Heiderscheidt said. “I’ve kept in touch with Dunwa and Jon quite a bit and when I went on my visit, they actually went on my tour with me on campus.”

His dad, Shane, is the coach at Sleepy Eye High school. Kegan said that Shane was the reason he got involved playing the sport in the first place.

“It’s huge, without him I don’t think I would’ve taken basketball as seriously as I did,” Heiderscheidt said. “He went to the next level, he knew what it takes and he told me if you really want to do this, it’s not going to be easy, but you can do it.”