UCLA may have boosted its recruiting efforts in Georgia with the hiring of Korey McCray, an AAU basketball coach from the Atlanta area.
McCray, 32, was CEO of the Atlanta Celtics, one of the top AAU summer travel teams in the nation. AAU basketball is a hotbed for recruiting because of the high level of talent. Dwight Howard, Joe Johnson and Amare Stoudamire are a few of the Celtics alumni playing in the NBA.
It was a surprising yet shrewd hiring by UCLA, instantly giving the Bruins a strong recruiting presence in talent-loaded Georgia. Colleges have a complicated relationship with AAU teams because of loose regulations and with AAU coaches because they sometimes have more influence than high school coaches and parents on recruits.
“AAU coaches are always going to be involved in a kid’s recruitment just because that’s where most kids get seen by college coaches, and that’s who the college coaches usually contact first to get in with a kid,” said Dan McDonald, who covers basketball recruiting for the Georgia and Georgia Tech websites at Rivals.com.
Colleges hiring assistants with such a background is rare. Memphis coach Josh Pastner directed his father’s AAU teams in Houston that featured future NBA talents such as Emeka Okafor and T.J. Ford. Arizona assistant Emanuel Richardson and Central Michigan coach Ernie Zeigler also have AAU backgrounds.
McCray has basketball credentials other than AAU. McCray was a member of Cedar Grove High School’s 1997 state championship team with former Tech player and Hawks first-round pick Dion Glover.
McCray played point guard at Mercer and then served as a graduate assistant at Florida State from 2002-04. He was an assistant at Florida’s Chipola Junior College from 2004-05, and returned to Mercer as an assistant from 2007-08. Since 2004, McCray has trained players on the side, including Dwight Howard and John Wall before they became No. 1 overall NBA picks.
The state of Georgia has one of it deeper groups of college basketball prospects for 2012, with three ranked among the top 20 nationally — Southwest DeKalb’s Shaq Goodwin, Miller Grove’s Tony Parker, and Thomasville’s Robert Carter.
At least 23 rising seniors across the state hold scholarship offers from major schools, compared with about a dozen this time last year.
“I’m definitely going to recruit the state of Georgia,” McCray said in a phone interview from Los Angeles.
“But certain schools get players from anywhere. Certain schools don’t have to stick to a region. UCLA is one of those schools. With a school like UCLA, I feel like you can get talent from anywhere.
“But I’m definitely going to recruit Georgia schools.”
Will McCray have an advantage in recruiting the state for UCLA? McCray said Tech and Georgia have the upper hand because of the close proximity to the Atlanta area, adding “but I’d say I know the area well, and I know the [AAU and high school] coaches.”
UCLA coach Ben Howland told the Los Angeles Times recently that he would not hire an AAU coach to create a pipeline of talent, but it’s hard to imagine McCray’s extensive connections in Georgia and in AAU circles will not benefit the Bruins.
It may already be happening.
Two players with the Atlanta Celtics, Goodwin and former Central Gwinnett standout Jordan Adams (now at Oak Hill Academy), have scholarships offers from UCLA and plan to visit the Bruins this summer.
The 6-foot-8 Goodwin, who is considered the state’s No. 1 prospect, said his top five are Georgia, Memphis, UCLA, Florida and Alabama. Goodwin claims no leaders, but acknowledges that UCLA has a better chance after hiring the man who coached him in AAU for the past three years.
“It will help a little bit because I will know somebody when I go out there,” Goodwin said.
Meanwhile, Adams toured UCLA last week, but he said McCray’s presence won’t affect his college decision. “He’s a great person, but it won’t make a difference with where I go,” Adams said.
Former Tech coach Paul Hewitt would’ve hired McCray as an assistant in 2009 had Darryl LaBarrie not applied for the vacancy, according to the Times.
McCray knows he is stuck with the “college team hires AAU coach” label, and he said he’s fine with it.
“I’m getting a lot of attention for it, but I’m not the first,” he said. “Hopefully I do a good job so other guys will get opportunities. I’ve coached at the Division I level before, and I look forward to learning under coach Howland and the other guys on the staff. I’m grateful to get this opportunity.”
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