With College basketball quickly approaching, I take a look at my favorite highly touted prospects from high school basketball who just never panned out. Ballislife and HoopMixtape were the greatest two hype videos to watch high school basketball recruits. They put kids on the map. They were the reason behind the hype of pretty much every major basketball recruit. If you are a college basketball fan and you said you didn’t like these videos you are just plain lying.
Milton Jennings – 5 star committed to Clemson University
This one really hits home because Milton was the first five-star recruit Clemson snagged in the last 20 years. He was supposed to be the savior of the program and really break Clemson out from losing in the first round of the tournament every year. Instead, he got caught smoking marijuana in his dorm room while on Xbox live with one of my buddies whom I will not name. His entire career was then defined by playing nervous and just scared to really open up.
He played at a private high school in Charleston, SC, which may have been the reason he was so high, but if you were living in the state of South Carolina at the time you knew Oliver Purnell (Clemson’s head coach at the time) wound up taking Milton over Khris Middleton who still plays for the Milwaukee Bucks…
The Entire D-One AAU team
JT Terrell, Quincy Miller, Deuce Bello. All these guys were high 4 to 5 stars guys and they all played on the same AAU basketball team called D-One. D-one was considered one of the top AAU basketball teams of all time, and man is it a shame the entire team ended up as busts in college. JT Terrell was my personal favorite. The guy would cross you and just shoot it in your face and you could do nothing about it. JT Terrell ended up committing to Wake Forest, but transferring after his freshman year to Southern Cal where he really never panned out.
Deuce Bello was considered maybe the greatest high school dunker for some time. His dunks were that of a Greek God. He did things no one else in basketball could do around that time. After playing at Baylor for a couple seasons, he transferred to Missouri, then to East Tennessee State. He actually played okay there for a season or two. He just never lived up to his DR. J dunking abilities.
Quincy Miller was the truth. He was the focal point of the D-One basketball team and had the abilities to be the next big NBA prospect. This one will always confuse me because he had all the tools to be an NBA hall of famer. Miller went pro after a very mediocre season at Baylor where he played with Deuce Bello, his high school best friend. QMillerTime, as they pegged him in high school, was drafted in the second round by the Denver Nuggets. He then bounced from team to team in the D league and now plays in Europe. If you ever saw the documentaries on this AAU basketball team 8 years ago, you would never believe this could actually be written now about this team.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EhB_VEAItqI
CJ Leslie – 5 star committed to NC State
CJ Leslie was a high school teammate of John Wall and some analysts (including myself) thought he had a higher ceiling than Wall. He was a big man who could put it on the floor and rivaled Deuce Bello for the best high school dunker of all time. Some of his high school mixtape was actually scary because of how hard he would dunk on people.
The guy could just do it all until he got to NC State and Mark Gottfried was his coach. CJ Leslie was all natural ability and his time at State was short and pretty sad. The guy was supposed to be Mr. Everything, but he really just farted out. His attitude was his worst problem, he never believed in coaching and that’s the case with guys with such natural ability sometimes. Too much God given talent can almost turn into a bad thing, I reckon.
Cliff Alexander and Josh Selby – both 5 stars committed to Kansas
Josh Selby was the number one prospect coming out of high school in 2010 over Kyrie Iriving. Cliff Alexander was the number four rated prospect coming out of high school in 2014. I don’t know how many times I can overstate how big of busts both of these guys were in their respective years. Selby started out his career at Kansas by being suspended for 9 games because of illegal benefits from Carmelo Anthony’s agent. He was a kid who took benefits like I would if I were a recruit, but we’ll save that article for another day. Selby lasted one season at Kansas before going pro and making a couple D League stops. His attitude was his problem as well, he never wanted to be the guy he could have been. All God-given talent.
Cliff Alexander lasted one season at Kansas as well and boy did he stink. He chose Kansas over Illinois and it turned out in favor of the Fighting Illini. Alexander went undrafted and played on the Trailblazers for a short period of time, then got cut. Another all God-given talent just gone right to waste. It really is sad about all the guys who’ve wasted their talent over the past couple years. This is just a few of the many.
