After a summer of traveling the country and playing basketball, Keith Wooden won’t be kicking back and relaxing until school starts.

“I need to get a job,” he said. “My mom’s like, ‘All this money we spend on you to travel and play basketball, you need to get a job.'”

Free State's Keith Wooden, jumping over Shawnee Mission South's defense last season, has been impressing recruiters and coaches this summer.

Wooden, a 6-foot-9 senior-to-be at Free State High, spent June and July playing in basketball tournaments and camps across the U.S. His team, the Kansas City Nets, is filled with some of the best ballers in the Kansas City area, while the Nike camps he attended had some of the best players in the country.

The Nets capped their summer with the Price Chopper/Kansas City Prep Invitational Basketball Tournament last weekend in Kansas City, Mo., placing third. It was the final stop of a trip that included stops in Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando and Louisville, among others. Wooden sometimes played three games a day, during a three- or four-day tournament.

And to some, Wooden’s play has improved dramatically because of the number of games and the quality of competition.

“He’s having a heckuva summer,” said Wooden’s summer league coach, L.J. Goolsby. “He’s coming into his own, playing with some of the best players in the country.”

Though he caught some heat during last year’s high school season for not always dominating smaller opponents, if the summer reports are to be believed, that won’t be a problem as a senior. Up, around or over, Wooden should be golden.

“He’s got the ability to face up, and go around them, if he can,” Goolsby said.

In June’s Atlanta Basketball Classic, recruiting analyst Jeff Markman of Volball.com, said Wooden’s ballhandling skills were better than any prospect his size should have. Markman went on to rave about his agility and quickness.

Tom Tietze, a prep scouting service coordinator, has seen Wooden play often the past three years and says there’s no comparison to what he’s done this season.

“Sometimes, you walked away scratching your head wondering why he didn’t dominate,” Tietze said. “But you didn’t last weekend.”

Tietze, who ran the K.C. tournament with Ed Fritz, coach at Blue Valley Northwest, said Wooden was assertive scoring and rebounding among some good players. In the Nets’ first game, Wooden scored 18 points and snagged 10 rebounds. It seems that after two years of learning to use his size, Wooden finally has done just that.

“With his performance against the competition this summer, he should have a lot of confidence heading into his senior year,” Tietze said.

That’s the area that the All-Sunflower league player has to dominate next. He averaged 16.6 points per game last year for the 10-11 Firebirds, but will be asked to do even more this year.

With college on the horizon, motivation shouldn’t be a problem.

Wooden has seen his stock rise as a college prospect, receiving interest from Arizona State, Kansas State, Missouri, Wichita State, Indiana, Connecticut, and, of course, the hometown Jayhawks of Kansas University.

“He’s gathering quite a bit of attention,” Goolsby said.

Some recruiters have him among the top 50 prospects in the country, which makes the phone pretty busy at Wooden’s house.

“It’s fun, but you get tired of it too,” he said. “My mom told me to get off the phone after awhile.”

Now, with the hectic schedule behind him, Wooden will look for that job he doesn’t know what he wants to do and work on his game. Some nights he’ll head up to the Free State gym and shoot baskets or maybe work on his post moves. His summer of basketball behind him, Wooden’s ready to look toward the high school season.

“It’s been good,” Wooden said. “I’ve gotten to meet a lot of guys, and I’ve just been playing a lot. It’s been a lot of fun.”