Georgia Tech and Georgia are still in the competition for Pace Academy power forward Wendell Carter Jr., ranked the No. 3 prospect in the country by ESPN. Tuesday, Carter narrowed list of schools to four – Duke, Harvard, Georgia and Tech. He made the announcement from his Twitter account.
Tech coach Josh Pastner and UGA coach Mark Fox have survived an 8-to-4 cutdown that eliminated some of the biggest names in college basketball – Kentucky, Arizona, North Carolina and California. Pastner and Fox still have work to do, though.
“I would say right now it’s Georgia, Georgia Tech and the top two would be Duke and Harvard,” Carter’s father, Wendell Carter Sr. said Tuesday. “That would be the frontrunners. We’re going to throw Georgia and Georgia Tech in just because it’s the hometown and we’ll take a look at it. You never know.”
The Carters returned Sunday night from an official visit to Harvard. They have another official visit scheduled for Duke. Carter Sr. said that the family will have unofficial visits with Tech and Georgia.
Duke, with coach Mike Krzyzewski on the bench, perennial contention for the national championship and its parade of lottery picks, speaks for itself.
Harvard would seem an unlikely destination, but coach Tommy Amaker signed four of ESPN’s top 100 in the 2016 class and the school’s academic might is a strong draw for parents sending their child to one of the most prestigious private schools in metro Atlanta.
“I’m a dad,” he said. “I’m like, O.K., this is not all about basketball.”
That Tech is in the picture, however uncertain its chances, is a credit to Pastner and his staff’s work in pursuing Carter Jr. since his hire in April, trying to catch up to coaches who had been recruiting him for two years.
“I can’t say it any other way than he’s new,” Carter Sr. said of Pastner. “We don’t know. We haven’t had an opportunity to see what kind of coaching, recruiting he has.”
It may play to Tech’s advantage that Carter Sr. said that his son may wait until the April 2017 signing period, which could give Pastner a chance to show him a recruiting class that he could join and an indication of his coaching style.
Carter Sr. has a clearer sense of Georgia and Fox.
“I think the world of Coach Fox,” Carter Sr. said. “Coach Fox is a great guy. He has proven himself in reference to what we’re looking at, but we’ll see.”
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