Austin Rivers, one of the most-hyped freshman basketball players to set foot on Duke’s campus in recent history, was ranked third in his class in the final class of 2011 recruiting rankings from ESPN and Scout.com.
This year, the Blue Devils may have their sights set one slot higher, on power forward Mitch McGary, who currently ranks second on those same lists in the class of 2012. McGary will be in Durham this weekend making his official visit to Duke.
He visited Michigan last weekend and North Carolina yesterday. He has yet to schedule planned visits to Florida, Kentucky and Maryland. ESPN’s Adam Finkelstein reported last week that McGary will have the opportunity to take as many as ten official visits—five more than usual—because of his status as a postgraduate player. The only requirement is that he only take five trips before Oct. 15, the date the NCAA begins acknowledging him as a postgrad.
McGary is a high-energy power forward who possesses size, strength and a strong work ethic. He measured 6-foot-11 with a 7-foot wingspan at the LeBron James Skills Academy this past July and weighed in at 258 pounds. He is recognized as a prolific rebounder at both ends of the floor and shows excellent consistency and physicality on the offensive end.
Chosen to participate in the Elite 24 showcase in Venice Beach, Calif. last week, McGary stole headlines by breaking a glass backboard with a thunderous dunk in warm-ups, delaying the start of one of the games. He required 37 stitches after landing in the pile of shards.
After starring for three years at Chesterton High School in Chesterton, Ind., a small town in northwest Indiana, McGary decided to transfer to Brewster Academy, a boarding school in Wolfeboro, N.H., and repeat his junior year. Last year, his first at Brewster, he wasn’t even a starter for a team that won the 2010 National Prep School Championship and featured five players who went on to receive Division-I scholarships. He will play out his fifth high-school year at Brewster this season alongside heralded small forward and Durham native T.J. Warren.
Though he was relegated to sixth-man duties at school, McGary’s stock exploded on the club circuit this past summer, though his AAU game is a bit difficult to evaluate since he was a 19-year-old playing for an under-17 squad.
Due to his advanced age, he also could theoretically be eligible for the 2012 NBA draft without ever setting foot on a college campus. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, players are draft-eligible if they are 20 years old at the time of the draft and are a year removed from high-school graduation. McGary reclassified for the class of 2012 as a recruit, but his graduation date is still officially listed as 2011, so he will meet both requirements if the 2012 draft takes place at its usual late-June date. That CBA has expired, however, and there is uncertainty surrounding the future of draft eligibility requirements if and when a new labor agreement is reached.
Although McGary’s Brewster coach Jason Smith told Rivals.com that McGary “has not even thought about or contemplated going from Brewster Academy directly to the NBA,” AAU coach Wayne Brumm said the option had not been ruled out.
McGary told Detroit News columnist Sam Webb in late July that he hopes to commit before the start of his final year, and said he “would like to play right away.”
Duke, whose frontcourt could take a big hit with the graduation of Miles Plumlee and the potential early departure of Mason Plumlee, could use reinforcement at the forward position. McGary would certainly be a solution to that problem, though it’s unclear how long he is planning to stay in school.
If the excitement surrounding Rivers is any indication, though, McGary could bring even greater hype were he to step on campus as a freshman next season.
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