Newest baseball commit 'fell in love' with USC immediately

South Carolina added another piece to its 2022 class Tuesday night with the commitment of catcher Zander Buchan, a highly-rated switch-hitting catcher out of Illinois.

Buchan's recruitment came at him fast, picking up quickly this December before he ultimately chose South Carolina after visiting campus.

“I went to South Carolina for a camp in December and as I went there I fell in love with it right away and all the baseball facilities," Buchan told GamecockCentral. "I loved all the coaching staff. From Chicago, the one big thing was the weather and going down south and SEC competition. That’s what put it on top for me.”

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Buchan attended a prospect camp at Founders Park in December where he was able to tour the facilities and visit with the team's coaching staff.

He left impressed with the program and didn't wait too long to commit to South Carolina after that, choosing the Gamecocks over Louisville and Illinois.

“Everything down to the physical training area, the own weight room, the field, I really love the field,” Buchan said. “Everything stood out to me. It was probably one of the nicest facilities I’ve seen. Everything is there for you as a baseball player.”

PerfectGame rates Buchan as the No. 5 catcher in Illinois and the 13th-best prospect in the state. He's ranked the No. 42 catcher in the class and a top 1,000 prospect.

He's in the 98th percentile in pop time for catchers in the 2022 class at 1.85 seconds.

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“I’m a catcher and I have a strong arm, my accuracy’s good and I take pride blocking wise. I have a pretty good pop time,” he said. “I have a plus bat for being a switch hitter. I can hit the gaps, singles and doubles when needed.”

One of the biggest tools of his game is the fact he's a switch hitter, something he really started about four years ago despite being a natural righty.

He's already developed some power with PerfectGame clocking his exit velocity while hitting at 86 mph, one of the better ones in the 2022 class.

“It’s pretty tough. You have to take equal swings on both sides. I have to treat my lefty swing, my non-dominant swing, as my dominant swing. You have to work at it,” Buchan said about switch hitting. “It started about four years ago. My hitting trainer Joe Mazzuca was talking to my dad and said, ‘If you want to go to the bigs, this is the ride: switch hitting catcher.’ So I’ve been working since then and we’re going to keep going with it.”

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Buchan is the fourth commitment in the Gamecocks' 2022 class joining Blaise Grove, Connor Fuhrman and Jack Reynolds.

He still has a handful of years before he gets to Columbia but said he's looking forward to playing at Founders Park against SEC competition and a coaching staff with a familiar link.

“Coach Kingston, he was a switch hitting catcher, and I feel like we’ll have a lot to relate to each other," he said. "The fans at South Carolina, that’s going to be really cool.”