Makur Maker Commits to Howard
The typical trend when it comes to recruiting is college basketball is pretty simple. Top recruits end up going to power schools, ones that have tons of exposure on national television and are in contention for a potential national title almost every season. While James Wiseman may have been a slight deviation by going to Memphis, the Tigers had the pull of former NBA star Penny Hardaway as coach and the fact that he was playing close to home. As it turned out, his collegiate career lasted only three games before he was suspended and ultimately withdrew from school.
On Friday, that typical route was completely turned on its ear and shook the recruiting system to its core.
Makur Maker, who was ranked 16th in the ESPN recruiting rankings and 17th in the 247Sports.com rankings, stunned the college basketball world with his announcement Friday morning. After announcing last week that his final four schools included UCLA, Kentucky and Memphis, it turned out that none of those would be his choice. Instead, Maker, the cousin of Pistons’ big man Thon Maker, made the choice to attend Howard University. That makes him the highest-ranked recruit to commit to a historically Black college or university since at least 2007.
Maker had entered his name into the 2020 NBA Draft pool but one has to think that he will remove himself from consideration after committing to Howard. His goal is to try and bring more attention to HBCUs among top recruits, something that he spoke about on Twitter Friday. In his post, Maker said: "I was the 1st to announce my visit to Howard & other started to dream 'what if.’”I need to make the HBCU movement real so that others will follow. I hope I inspire guys like Mikey Williams to join me on this journey. I am committing to Howard U & coach Kenny Blakeney."
It’s a massive get for Howard and coach Kenny Blakeney, who completed his first season with the program in the 2019-20 campaign that was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bison were a dismal 4-29 on the season and went just 1-15 in MEAC play in the regular season. Howard did drop South Carolina State in the opening round of the MEAC Tournament before losing to second-seeded North Carolina A&T in the quarterfinals. By way of comparison, Blakeney was on the losing side as a player at Duke just 34 times in his four years with the school. Eighteen of those came in his senior season of 1994-95 when things fell apart but he also was part of a national title team as a freshman in 1991-92.
Maker averaged 17.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game in 12 games for Hillcrest Prep in Phoenix, Arizona in his senior season. He wasn’t expected to be selected in the 2020 NBA Draft based on the crowded draft class this year. The expectation is that he has a high ceiling with terrific perimeter shooting for a guy his size. At 6’11, 235, he has the potential to be a stretch four or five type of guy that is solid on the defensive end of the floor and good on the glass. Perhaps the most concerning knock on Maker is that he’ll need to put on some weight and build strength to avoid being thrown around in the low block. That’s something that can be dealt with over the course of time.
This could be the first shot in the changing of the guard where highly-rated prospects give stronger consideration to schools other than ones like Duke, Kentucky and Kansas, among others. Kudos to Maker for eschewing the bigger schools in an effort to potentially bring a light to some of the smaller programs where players can still have success. Hopefully it will open the eyes of recruits and make them see that there is more to the college basketball world than the dozen or so schools you hear chasing every five-star recruit or McDonald’s All-American.