Tavin Lovan wants to be at his absolute best when it comes to playing college basketball.

That’s why the Franklin-Simpson High School senior is taking an alternate route to reach that destination by choosing prep school for his next step.

Lovan announced Sunday he will reclassify to the Class of 2018 and attend Hargrave Military Academy, a military preparatory school in Chatham, Va.

Lovan tweeted from his account @TLovan03: “I have made the decision to reclassify to 2018 and do a Post Grad year at Hargrave Military Academy. #GoTigers.”

Lovan, who will turn 18 in June, told the Daily News in a phone interview that being a little younger than most recruits in his class was a factor in the decision to want to grow for six to seven months at a boarding school instead of diving right into the college scene.

“I’m just trying to get bigger, better and stronger for college,” Lovan said. “I knew from the time I left that visit (on Friday) I wanted to go there and for a year of post-grad, it’s the best school.

“It’s not like I’m going up there just for basketball, I’m going up there to get away from home and just know how it feels to be at college. It gives me a little bit of room to grow and experience life on my own and know how I’ll be when I go away from my family when I do go away (for) college. This gives me time to grow as a person and a player.”

Hargrave Military Academy has won two national prep championships and reached the final four this spring. Lovan said other prep schools reached out to him, but Hargrave was always the front-runner and the visit on Friday not only sealed the deal, he said “we could’ve made this decision a long time ago.”

According to 247Sports, Lovan had offers from Bradley, Duquesne, Eastern Kentucky, Miami (Ohio) and Middle Tennessee. A three-star recruit, he averaged 26.3 points and 9.4 rebounds on his way to earning Franklin-Simpson’s all-time scoring record.

He scored a career-high 49 points to lead the Wildcats in the District 13 championship game. Franklin-Simpson went 26-7 and lost to Bowling Green in the Region 4 tournament semifinals.

The 6-foot-4, 186-pound shooting guard scored four points in the Kentucky-Ohio All-Star game in April.

Lovan compared the exposure he’ll get on the national prep level to another year on the AAU circuit. A.W. Hamilton, Hargrave’s postgraduate head coach and program director, prepped at Scott County High School and won a state title at the school in 1998.

Hamilton helped produce former University of Louisville stars Terry Rozier and Montrezl Harrell, who each attended Hargrave before UofL and eventually became 2015 NBA Draft picks.

Players from the last Hargrave post-grad team have committed to schools such as Marshall, West Virginia, South Florida, Xavier, Stony Brook, Indiana State and VCU. The only player from Kentucky on the last roster was Braxton Beverly, a 6-foot guard from Hazard who will join Ohio State next season.

“Colleges like to come see big-time basketball, so I know they’ll be at our games,” Lovan said. “It’s about taking my game to the next level. Coach Hamilton told me he wanted to get my skill level right before I went to college. You can always work on your game, but he told me he could help me get to where I need to be and I couldn’t turn down that opportunity.

“Right then and there, I said this is what I need to be in.”{&end}