Harrison Barnes' Recruitment Got Spicy at the Last Minute
Want more about Harrison Barnes? Listen to Dave Odom's Bustercast for the full deets.
Harrison Barnes is the top college basketball recruit in the country. He will be rich in a few months one day when he finally turns pro. For now, however, he'll just have to settle for the doting affections of Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams as they wholeheartedly pursue his basketball skillz.
And lest you think that they're not, allow me to explain the above picture: that's from FlightAware, an airplaine tracking service mostly used by message board freaks trying to figure out what coach is visiting their school. (No, seriously: I can't tell you how many times I hit "refresh" waiting to see if John Calipari's plane had left from Memphis to Raleigh a few years back.) In this case, though, folks are tracking Roy Williams' meeting with Harrison Barnes in Ames, Iowa, the home of America's most talented high schooler.
Monday was, as Odom noted in the podcast link above, the last day that either K or Roy would have a shot at in-person contact with Barnes until after the season, so it was important to make it count. Now, word on the street is that Coach K expected to be the very last coach-person that Barnes saw.
Then the flight info popped up (apparently the Barnes family wanted Roy coming to Ames) and all hell broke loose on most Duke and Carolina boards. That's because it now appears as if Carolina's the more popular choice, even if Roy couldn't land a commitment from Barnes when he visited Chapel Hill earlier.
Do we actually know anything in terms of what Barnes really wants? Hell and no. It's the bizarre thing about college recruiting: even though he's a young kid, he's got plenty of folks talking to him and probably getting pretty good advice. And he also knows that everyone wants him, which means he'll take his time deciding on which fanbase's hearts he wants to break.
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