The calls started coming immediately after Dublin won the Class AA boys basketball championship back in March. They continued through the start of the new school year and had college recruiters coming through the school's gym daily once preseason workouts started.
"Right after the championship game and then over the summer when I got back from AAU, people started blowing my phones up," said Tawaski King, a senior center for the Fighting Irish.
But King ended all of that Wednesday afternoon, three weeks before the start of his senior season, by signing a national letter of intent to play basketball next year at Western Carolina.
The six-feet eight-inch King committed to the Catamounts about a month ago, he said, and signed on the first day of the NCAA's early signing period in order to focus on the upcoming season. Dublin tips off Dec. 1 at home against Warner Robins.
"I didn't want to waste any time if I already knew where I wanted to go," King said. "I didn't want to waste my time. I didn't want to waste nobody else's time."
Dublin coach Marvin Latham said about 20 other schools were recruiting King up until Wednesday, and it would have continued throughout the season had he not already made up his mind.
"Every time we would work out, we would have two or three schools in here just watching him work out," Latham said. "He wanted to get that pressure off of him."
King said he selected Western Carolina, which recently was voted the preseason favorite to win the Southern Conference's North Division, because of his relationship with the coaching staff and the on-campus atmosphere he experienced on a recent visit.
Latham added that King was the Catamounts' top recruiting target this year and that many other schools took notice of him during Dublin's run through the state tournament.
"Down the stretch, getting into the region tournament and the playoffs, his teammates started feeding him the ball and you started seeing him explode," Latham said.
"The potential's there. What we're seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. That's a lot more they're going to get out of him at Western Carolina. I think two years down the line, you're going to see this guy do some special things at the next level."
King averaged 10.2 points per game on a team that featured three other double-figure scorers an led Dublin in rebounding with seven per game.
He is set to become the fourth player from Dublin's state championship team to reach the next level, joining three of last year's senior guards. Sherrard Brantley signed in the spring to play junior college ball in Florida, Chris Smith is a walk-on at Mercer and Rashard Smith is a freshman cornerback on the North Carolina State football team.
King is now one of two returning starters, along with junior Ramahd Thomas, set to lead this season's state title defense. He said he's settling into his new role as team leader.
"It's different, because you don't have all those other guys to pick up your slack," King said. "I feel like I'm a key to the season. If I don't show up doing what I'm supposed to do, how do I expect the team to do what they're supposed to do"?
No comments:
Post a Comment