As of today the top 11 point guards have all committed to schools for next year and 15 of the top 20 are off the board. Not one of them is coming to UK, and most of them don’t have Kentucky on their list. The reason? N.C. State transfer Ryan Harrow is already on board for the Wildcats.
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Coming out of high school Harrow was a highly touted prospect. A top 100 player, Ryan was supposed to help lead the Wolfpack back to national prominence along with Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie; but it never happened. The Wolfpack had a underwhelming season as both Harrow and Leslie had struggles as freshmen and N.C. State failed to make the tournament. Coach Sidney Lowe was fired and Mark Gottfried was brought in to take his place. That’s when Harrow decided to transfer, and coach Cal was waiting with open arms.
The knock on the class of 2012 is that the point guard position is especially weak this year so people where unsure of which point guard coach Cal would go after to groom into his next NBA player. If you look at the record of lead guards that Cal has put into the league over the past five years it’s impressive. Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans, John Wall, Brandon Knight, and Eric Bledsoe have all joined the NBA under coach Cal’s tutelage and Rose, Evans, and Wall are all bonified stars on the next level, Bledsoe is slowly coming into his own, and Brandon will be a rookie when the season starts.
Now Cal has his sights set on making Harrow into the next great UK guard, while he must sit out this year while his freshmen teammate Marquis Teague takes the reins of possibly the best team in the country this year, there’s no doubt that a year in the program will benefit him. Having to go up one of the better backcourts in the country in practice for a year should help him on both ends of the floor and get him ready for the tough SEC season as well as the usual grueling non-conference schedule that Kentucky must face.
Coming out of high school Harrow was a borderline all-american, and if coach has his way then by the time he leaves Lexington he will be a college all-american.
