Surprise school emerges as favorite to land wildly hyped prospect Zion Williamson
In the world of basketball recruiting, it’s usually the powerhouses or blue bloods that land all of the top recruits. Schools like Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky and Kansas are usually at the top of every prospect’s wish list.
Every once in a while, however, there will be a prospect like Ben Simmons who goes off script and chooses an unexpected school. In Simmons’ case, he was the No. 1 player in the Class of 2015 and went to LSU as his godfather was an assistant coach there.
Simmons’ decision sent shockwaves throughout college basketball as he chose a “football school” and shunned the bigger programs.
Three years later, another highly ranked prospect is poised to head to a college known more for its work on the gridiron than the hardwood: According to reports, Zion Williamson is leaning toward Clemson as the front-runner for his services.
Xavier Thomas to Zion Williamson: Come to #Clemson and make history @atxlete: https://t.co/HpkirAyF2Q pic.twitter.com/lCOorM09Im
— TigerNet.com (@ClemsonTigerNet) September 10, 2017
That news comes courtesy of 247 Sports, which relies on the predictions of its recruiting experts. Seventy percent of the them believe Williamson will chose Clemson, 15 percent think he’ll go with Kentucky and 5 percent each choose UNC or Kansas.
Williamson is ranked as the No. 2 overall recruit in the Class of 2018 by 247 Sports, Rivals and ESPN. He is the top uncommitted player as No. 1 overall R.J. Barrett committed to Duke in November.
Williamson made his official visits to the schools you would expect: Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina. He also has made unofficial visits to both Clemson and South Carolina, having lived in South Carolina since he was 2 years old.
In addition to being raised in South Carolina, Williamson also has another connection to Clemson: His stepfather is Lee Anderson, who played basketball for the Tigers in the 1970s.
While LSU had legends like Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal before Simmons enrolled there, Clemson basketball is devoid of such players. The Tigers have had only 16 players in school history who have made it to the NBA, with the best of the bunch being Larry Nance and Horace Grant.
Trevor Booker is the only active Clemson Tiger in the NBA, and the school has landed just one top 25 recruit since 247 Sports began tracking the data in 2000.
Perhaps Williamson just wants to play close to home, perhaps he wants to follow in the footsteps of his stepfather, or perhaps he wants to become the greatest basketball played in Clemson history. The bar isn’t that high.
Or perhaps who planned this decision all along and wants to live up to the tweet from 2016 that’s pinned on his Twitter page.
I'm going to shock the world #Believeit
— Zion Williamson (@Zionwilliamson) June 22, 2016
Williamson tweeted this week that he will announce his decision Jan. 20. He did it in a way that, in part, shows why he is so highly coveted.
https://twitter.com/ZionW32/status/948736395279036416
As of now, Clemson’s top recruit is three-star big man Trey Jemison. 247 Sports says Clemson has the ninth-best recruiting class in the ACC, but that could climb to as high as third behind Duke and UNC if Williamson stays home.
The current crop of Tigers is doing well in its own right as Clemson is 13-1 and ranked for the first time since the 2009-10 season (No. 25 in the latest AP poll). Clemson is looking to make the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2010-11 season, when Williamson was just 10 years old.
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