Daishen Nix, Alaska’s hottest high school basketball player, will finally play in Alaska

Alaska’s hottest high school basketball player is bringing his game to town next month, and the occasion is likely to be Anchorage’s hottest sports ticket of 2020.

Daishen Nix, the Anchorage player known to most Alaska basketball fans by reputation and highlight reels, is coming home for the annual Alaska Airlines Classic.

Nix and his team, Trinity International Prep of Las Vegas, will headline the Jan. 23-25 tournament at West High.

Widely considered the best high school passer in the nation, Nix was wooed by multiple Division I powerhouses before he signed a letter of intent to play for UCLA.

“He’s a generational kid who comes along every 10 or 15 years,” Trinity coach Greg Lockridge said in a phone interview. “He’ll be hyped. He’ll bring his A game.

“When the lights turn on, he turns up. And you’ll get a chance to see it.”

Nix is a 6-foot-5, 205-pound point guard whose skills dazzled those who saw him play at Mears Middle School and with the Alaska Gold AAU program.

He left Alaska after the eighth grade to seek a higher level of basketball and to be closer to extended family. He landed at Trinity International, where he continues to dazzle most everyone who has seen him play.

Lockridge, a longtime coach who once worked for Jerry Tarkanian at Fresno State, said Alaskans are in for a treat. Nix and Trinity will play three games in the Alaska Airlines Classic, which will also include six Alaska teams — West, East, Colony, Juneau, Dimond and Barrow — and Dillard High School of Florida.

“I’ve seen all the best and he’s better than they were,” Lockridge said. “I’ve had some great players along the way at the high school level, and he’s media savvy, well-spoken and a good-looking kid. He’s a can’t-miss kid.”

Nix is physically huge for a high school point guard but it’s his court vision and decision-making that made him a five-star recruit. He’s known for making what seem like impossible passes, but he’s a capable scorer too.

Last season, he averaged 19.9 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists a game for Trinity, which plays in the Grind Session Circuit, a nationwide league made up of prep schools.

When announcing UCLA’s acquisition of Nix, head coach Mick Cronin said he “has special talents on the basketball court and, at times, has shown unique X-ray vision as a passer.”

Believe the rave reviews, Lockridge said.

“His size, his instincts, his agility, his god-given talent, (he has) all those things,” he said. “He’ll go on to play beyond college. There are predictions he’ll be a first-round draft pick.”

Lockridge said he wanted to bring his team to Alaska this season as a reward for Nix and a thank-you to Alaska. Trinity originally said it would play in this week’s Doc Larson tournament in Wasilla, but bowed out in favor of a chance to play in Anchorage.

Nix is the biggest name the Alaska Airlines Classic has had in ages. You have to go back to the original incarnation of the tournament — the Great Alaska High School Classic, which had a glorious run from 1989-95 — to find a similar draw.

In 1991, standing-room-only crowds watched the East T-birds and sophomore Trajan Langdon take on nationally ranked Oak Hill Academy of Virginia in the championship game — Oak Hill, the third-ranked team in the nation at the time, won by three points, but the game catapulted Langdon and the T-birds to national prominence.