The 2018 high school class just got a lot more interesting.
While it has been a two-man race for the top recruit spot between Marvin Begley III and Zion Williamson, Canadian phenom R.J. Barrett has reclassified himself, and will be part of next year's class. He made the announcement on his blog, The R.J. Barrett Blog on USA Today HSS, where he shared that he's on track to graduate a year from now, and came to a decision, together with his family's help.
“Well, after thinking things over with my family for a while I have officially decided to reclassify to the 2018 class.”
“Really, it’s been a thought of mine for the last year, but I wanted to wait and see how the season would go and how school would go and when everything went well it became more and more real so I made the decision to go ahead and do it.”
“I’m right on track to graduate in 2018 and academically everything is great.”
“My family and I feel like this will be beneficial for me because I’m ready to move up and to be in college a year earlier.”
The Montverde Academy student also revealed which top universities have been actively recruiting him. He also made it known that he has yet to decide on it, but will be scheduling visits soon.
“On my recruitment, I will say that the schools that are showing the most interest are Arizona, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon, Texas and UCLA. A few more have reached out and those schools are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State, USC, UConn and UNLV.”
“Not too much will change with my approach to the recruitment; we’ll just do the visits a little sooner than we probably would have if I stayed in 2019.”
Barrett recently led the Canadian U-19 Team to a gold medal finish in the FIBA U-19 Championships held in Cairo, Egypt. He was named the tournament's MVP, after he recorded 18 points, 12 rebounds, and four assists in the championship game. The 17-year-old showed that he is a cut above the rest throughout the competition, and continued to turn a lot of heads with his all-around game.
If everything goes according to plan, Barrett will be available to be drafted in the NBA by 2019, should he be a one-and-done player as well. Most youngsters in the league today only stayed in college for a year to comply with the NBA's requirement, and declared for the draft as soon as they could.
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