Notre Dame Basketball: Are Irish entering new era of recruiting?
Mike Brey got his first commit of the 2017 class Tuesday in top prospect D.J. Harvey. Does this mean the Irish will start recruiting with the big dogs?
On Tuesday night, four-star winger D.J. Harvey announced he was verbally committing to Notre Dame’s men’s basketball program, ending the program’s dry spell with no commits. That alone would be worth celebrating, but Irish fans should be ecstatic about the new guy for much more than that.
According to 247Sports’s composite rankings, Harvey is the highest-rated commit the Irish have had since Demetrius Jackson, at No. 44 in the nation. He is also the eighth-best small forward in his class. He alone has vaulted ND to 41st in the national rankings for the class of 2017.
So first of all, who is this kid?
Harvey is 6-foot-6, 185 pounds. He’s from Hyattsville, Maryland, and attends DeMatha Catholic, a Washington D.C. powerhouse that has produced the likes of Quinn Cook, Victor Oladipo and all three Grant brothers, including Notre Dame alum Jerian.
According to 247Sports, and as evidenced by the video above, Harvey can do a lot of things extraordinarily well. His mid-range jumper is smooth, his range is impressive and his defense is solid. He’ll probably have to put on a little size if he wants to be able to battle down low with power forwards, but his speed allows him to really be dangerous against all sorts of defenders. His length is nice too.
The bottom line is, Harvey is an athlete, the likes of which Notre Dame men’s basketball rarely sees. Jackson, Connaughton and Grant are the only players in the past decade who compare to him from a physical standpoint, and they’re all in the NBA.
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But perhaps what’s most interesting about Harvey, at least from a program-wide perspective, is not his potential, but the fact that the Irish could land him in the first place.
First of all, Harvey chose Notre Dame over offers from perennial powers like UConn, Duke, Maryland, Georgetown, Louisville, UCLA, Arizona, Texas and Villanova. That’s basically a who’s who of college basketball elite. It’s worth noting that Irish coach Mike Brey used to coach at DeMatha, so Notre Dame had something of a built-in advantage that way. But still. Harvey spurned some of the most storied and respected programs in the country to come to a “football” school in the Midwest with one Final Four to its name.
Secondly, Grant was apparently integral to Harvey’s recruitment. Besides Grant being a DeMatha alum, his value as a recruiting tool cannot be overstated. He is a legitimate NBA player, not a borderline, D-League guy with no future. He is proof that you don’t have to go to a traditional powerhouse or play for just one collegiate season to be successful on the next level. And the fact that he’s willing to help Brey out is enormous. It’s one thing to tell a kid about how Notre Dame shaped Jerian Grant. It’s quite another to have Grant himself tell the player.
And lastly, Harvey, while an enormously talented player and almost certainly the jewel of the this recruiting class for Notre Dame, may not be the last top-100 recruit the Irish snag. Another Maryland guard, Darryl Morsell, has listed Notre Dame among his five finalists, alongside Dayton, Maryland, Villanova and Virginia Tech. Morsell, a combo guard, is the 79th best prospect in his class and No. 4 at his position.
Notre Dame has had two top-80 recruits just once since 2005. After two straight Elite Eight appearances, maybe, just maybe, Mike Brey and his staff are starting to cash in on the recruiting trail.
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