The Class of 2012 is turning out to have quite the payload.
Only a few days after Alex Murphy pledged his allegiance to the Blue Devils, Rasheed Sulaimon, ESPN’s 18th-ranked player in his class, verbally commited to Duke.
Sulaimon’s AAU head coach Marland Lowe confirmed the news to The Chronicle last night.
“He’s been excited for a long time,” Lowe said. “He loves Duke. It was a good fit.... He has that type of character and quality that the Duke players have had in the past.”
Sulaimon, a 6-foot-3, 175-pound guard from Houston, Texas’s Strake Jesuit College Prep, also plays for the AAU program, the Houston Hoops. He considered staying in-state and playing at Baylor or Texas, but after growing up a Duke fan and taking an official visit that included attending the Duke-North Carolina game, he made the call Thursday to play college ball in Durham.
Sulaimon, the fifth-ranked shooting guard in his class, seems to have made that decision based in large part on the academic environment of Duke—a rarity for college athletics. Sulaimon ranks at the top of his class at Strake Jesuit and at one point considered Stanford or Harvard, according to Lowe.
“What gave Duke the edge was the history of the program and the coaching staff, plus he and the family really love the academics,” Lowe said. “He wants his degree from Duke University.”
On the basketball side, Sulaimon is known for his ability to score all over the court and for his 3-point range.
“The best way to describe him is someone who caught his attention on the national level because he can shoot the basketball from all different places on the floor,” said Dave Telep, ESPN’s senior basketball recruiting analyst.
Sulaimon is a thin guard, though, who will need to improve his strength to compete in the ACC. Telep said he “on the cusp of being highly rated,” and that his game has vastly improved over the past few months. Lowe calls him “the hardest worker I’ve ever been around.”
“He’s starting to unfold right before our eyes,” Telep told The Chronicle. “You got to understand last summer, he was just starting to hit his stride and get his swagger, and that’s carried over to now.”
Telep believes that the timing of the decision, so soon after Murphy committed, and just a few weeks after Quinn Cook and Austin Rivers pledged, means Duke is on a recruiting hot streak. The ceiling may be limitless.
“Recruiting is such a momentum-driven business,” Telep said. “And when you have it, you ride it. They have arguably the most superior product in college basketball and it’s translating into recruiting success.”
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