At the completion of the 2010-2011 high school season, Anthony Davis overtook Mike Gilchrist and Austin Rivers to rank as the #1 HS prospect in the nation. With the July live recruiting period now in full swing, college coaches across the country are swarming to AAU events to bear witness and try to get a commitment from the top prospects in the 2012 Class.
Most experts agree that next year’s class is headlined by SF Shabazz Muhammad, along with promising big men Andre Drummond, Isaiah Austin, and DaJuan Coleman. With Austin already committed to Baylor, much of the attention this Summer has been focused on Muhammad as the top rated wing player.
Standing a cool 6’6 and a chiseled 205 lbs, Muhammad scores the rock as easily as any player in the class. He’s virtually unstoppable at the high school level from inside of 15 feet and has made great strides in his 3 point shooting to be an unstoppable offensive dynamo, as evidence of his averaging 25+ppg as a junior for Bishop Gorman HS in Nevada.
He also projects as a lock down perimeter defender because of some through the roof athleticism. Since it seems that Muhammad is the total package, it’s no wonder many now consider him the best player in the 2012 Class.
Shabazz is currently the #3 rated player by ESPN and as one could imagine, has received significant interest from virtually every high major Division I school, with Kentucky, UCLA, Kansas, Arizona, Duke, UNC, Memphis, UNLV, and Texas as supposed front-runners.
Although I think it’s a long-shot, some consider the hometown UNLV Runnin Rebels as a perceived favorite for Muhammad, who won the Gatorade POY in Nevada. UNLV fans can be as fanatical as any in the collegiate ranks, and not surprisingly are putting on the full court press so to speak, in an effort to help secure Shabazz’s services after next season.
Fans and students have shown up in drones on Twitter @UNLVloves Shabazz to show their love for the high scoring lefty forward and one local Vegas based artist even made this nifty, albeit totally fugazi Nike commercial in hopes of keeping Shabazz at home for the entirety of his college career.
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
