The coming college basketball season won’t have any of the following recruits. They’re going to form the future of college basketball as the Class of 2019. The main point to keep in mind with all of these recruits and the 2019 class in general is that their bodies will grow and change a lot in two years, by the time they take to a college hardwood. If the physical and athletic skills are impressive now, they will develop even more in the meantime, creating a more complete profile and an even more intriguing environment as blue-blood coaches compete to bring them home.
Charles Bassey
The center’s footwork is quite advanced for someone completing a high school sophomore season. Big men often struggle with their footwork. Low-post moves require a lot of patience and careful attention to detail. It’s easy to rely on height or length and think that pure athletic prowess can do all the work, but footwork and proper angles in terms of defensive positioning, rebounding, and offensive moves such as hook shots or ball fakes must be accompanied with an alert and precise use of feet, especially pivot moves and jab steps. Bassey is ahead of his peers in this regard, and that part alone could help him a lot.
Bassey doesn’t have any offers as of this moment but it appears that he has been linked to Kansas and Texas A&M as potential landing spots.
Vernon Carey
There aren’t many 250-pound power forwards with Carey’s collection of skills. He doesn’t need to gain any more weight, that’s for sure. If he can adjust to the ways in which his body will grow while maintaining a high level of physical fitness, this will be a very muscular and powerful low-post force, someone who would complement what Bassey brings to the table as a center, but in a different physical package.
Carey currently has official offers from six different schools. Those are Baylor, Florida, Georgia State, Louisville, Miami and Saint Louis.
R.J. Barrett
The tall shooting guard can shoot over the top of defenders and gain a clean release more than shooting guards which stand a few inches shorter than he does. He is a Canadian prospect, and Canada has been gaining more of a foothold in American college basketball. Oregon made its first Final Four since the original version of the event in 1939 with three Canadians: Dylan Ennis, Dillon Brooks, and Chris Boucher. Plenty of national elites will be after Barrett – this much is certain.
Barrett has a ton of offers from big-name schools, which includes the likes of Arizona, Baylor, Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, UCLA and USC. In short, he’ll have the opportunity to play wherever he feels like it as he’s that talented.
Scottie Lewis
Lewis is the top-ranked small forward on many lists of 2019 recruits. He is possibly the best vertical leaper who can play above the rim from a wing position and run the floor in transition. Other players can do these things, but Lewis is currently viewed by most as the one which can do them the best. That’s a very simple way of expressing how valuable he is likely to be as a recruit.
So far, Lewis has offers from Kansas, Maryland, Miami, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Temple, Villanova, Virginia Commonwealth and Washington. He has yet to visit any of those schools, though.
Bryan Antoine
There is no pure point guard on this list, so the 6-4 Antoine comes the closest to a player who can pick up a significant portion of a ball-handling workload for a team, even though his natural slot is at shooting guard. Antoine is a skilled shooter and an expert at getting free for shots in off-ball contexts, so he is a true two-guard by nature. However, if asked to handle the ball, he is more than competent at that skill and is therefore someone to view as a complete backcourt player. Antoine currently has offers from 11 major schools, including Notre Dame, Miami, Kansas and Florida.
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