Luke Appel

Marshalltown High School alumnus Luke Appel announced Saturday he is taking his basketball talents to South Dakota State in 2020-21 — committing to a school where he has lots of personal connections.

Appel, who spent the last two years at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City after graduating in 2018 from the Bobcats, said his recruiting process was a good experience.

Before the year, Appel said he went to a basketball camp in Dallas and received an offer from Texas State to kick off his Division I recruitment and he picked up another offer before the season began. During the year he added offers from Summit League schools Omaha, South Dakota and South Dakota State. He said that with the outbreak of the coronavirus and players not being allowed to visit schools, it put pressure on him to pick through his options at hand.

“It was a weight on my shoulders,” Appel said. “I just wanted to know where I was going to school.”

In the end, he said, his comfort level with the team’s coaches (former Kirkwood coach Bryan Petersen is an assistant) and players won out and he chose the Jackrabbits. South Dakota State went 22-10 in 2019-20.

Appel averaged 12.3 points in his two seasons with the Eagles, shooting 56.6 percent from the floor and 36.1 percent from 3-point range while hitting 62.4 percent of his free-throw attempts for the 24-6 Eagles. He was named Player of the Year in the ICCAC for 2019-20, a year after former Kirkwood teammate — and South Dakota State player — Doug Wilson won the award.

Appel said his older brother Michael Appel — Marshalltown’s boys basketball coach — is one of the biggest reasons he had the chance to make this decision. Luke said Michael changed his career direction during his senior year of high school. Luke was the Times-Republican’s Player of the Year in 2018.

“If it wasn’t for [Michael], I probably wouldn’t have even gone to Kirkwood,” Luke said.