Nationally ranked basketball phenom Omaha Biliew will play at Dowling Catholic

MAPLE GROVE, Minn. — One of the country's premier eighth-grade basketball prospects lives in Iowa, and he has decided where he'll attend high school.

Omaha Biliew will play his high school ball at Dowling Catholic, his AAU coach with Beyond Ball, John Lamb, told the Register on Sunday. Biliew currently attends middle school at St. Francis of Assisi in West Des Moines. He was considering several schools in the Des Moines area.

Biliew already stands 6-foot-7 with a 7-foot wingspan. He can shoot and runs like a gazelle, and he has excelled against fellow eighth-graders in the 2023 class, as well as older 2022 kids. He was playing up this past weekend with Beyond Ball's 15U team at PrepHoops Battle at the Lakes.

At Dowling, Biliew will pair up with power forward Ryan Riggs, the Register's No. 2 in-state prospect in the 2021 class.

Rankings don't usually start until prospects hit their sophomore years, because you just can't consistently predict how kids will develop after middle school. But, outlets that do rank middle-schoolers view Biliew as a future blue-chip.

Coast2Coast Preps has him at No. 7 in the class; Global Grassroots ranks him No. 4. Remember: That's No. 7 and No. 4 in the entire country.

Biliew was born in Omaha, Nebraska, (thus, his first name) but he's lived in Iowa since he was 2. This is just his second AAU season overall, and it's his first playing high school-level competition.

It's so incredibly early in his recruitment, but schools such as Iowa, Washington, Louisville, San Diego State, Morehead State, Drake, North Dakota and South Dakota State have expressed preliminary interest in Biliew, Lamb said.

Matthew Bain covers recruiting, Iowa/Iowa State athletics and Drake basketball for the Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Network. Contact him at mbain@dmreg.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewBain_.