The locals: In Coleman, Stewart, Syracuse area has unique combo of top-five basketball recruits
The similar scenes of men’s and women’s college basketball’s blue bloods flocking to Central New York illustrate the story of two blue chips. But it is a story of two top-tier recruits that is unique in the history of Syracuse-area basketball.
It’s an average weekday evening of a run-of-the-mill high school open gym for the Jamesville-DeWitt boy’s basketball team. While team members and other hopefuls shoot around and get warmed up for the evening’s pick-up games, everybody is waiting on DaJuan Coleman to enter the building.
Standing 6 feet 8 inches and weighing 280 pounds, all eyes are fixated on Coleman whenever he walks into a room. He knows it. He has learned to deal with being a high school celebrity, as one of the elite players in the 2012 recruiting class.
‘It’s real crazy because everywhere you go, people know who you are,’ Coleman said. ‘You always have to be level-headed and always look for interviews and be ready to talk to people.’
That same week, just 14 miles away, another celebrity is practicing in a high school gym. But Breanna Stewart is practicing in front of other celebrities.
Cramped inside the Gillette Road Middle School is NBA legend Michael Cooper. The 6-foot-5 coach of the Southern California women’s basketball team sits in a small, blue elementary school cafeteria chair. Dressed in an all-black Trojan track suit and crisp, white Nikes, Cooper balances on the undersized chair in silence, just like representatives from Indiana and Kentucky. They all take mental notes and observe.
Bloomington, Ind., and Lexington, Ky., are far from Central New York, and Los Angeles is a six-hour flight. But to Cooper, Stewart is worth the trip.
‘She’s pretty special,’ said Mark Lewis, the national recruiting coordinator for Hoopgurlz.com. ‘Whatever hype you’ve read or whatever anybody has told you is true. She’s one of those kids who actually live up to their billing.’
Like Stewart, Coleman is being recruited by nearly every school in the country as well. Just weeks earlier, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim and North Carolina head coach Roy Williams sat in on open gym and watched. Both are hoping to land Coleman in two years.
With the 2012 men’s and women’s recruiting classes, the greater Syracuse area has a men’s and women’s representative of a top-five player in the country. And now, as they enter their junior season, a further national basketball spotlight will be shed on Central New York high school basketball.
All because of Coleman and Stewart. And starting now, they will have to answer more and more questions about their celebrity-status recruitments. For each, there is one standout question. For Stewart: How good is she? For Coleman: Will he stay home and play for Syracuse?
Stewart, the 6-foot-3 junior for Cicero North Syracuse is widely considered the No. 1 ranked player in the Class of 2012. On this day’s practice, it’s easy to tell who Stewart is once inside the gym. She’s the tallest person on the court. Head coach Eric Smith has his team working on conditioning and ball-handling drills. Though smaller guards like Kelsey Mattice are suppose to dominate at this type of exercise, Stewart uses her fluidity to excel at the workout.
Lewis, of Hoopgurlz.com, has witnessed Stewart’s progression over the years. The former high school coach thoroughly understands the jewel of a player Smith has over at CNS.
‘Is she exceptional? Yes. Is she ultra talented? Yes,’ Lewis said. ‘She’s certainly one of the best players in high school girl’s basketball in the country, regardless of class.’
As of now, Stewart doesn’t have a list of schools and has no idea what school she wants to attend. Smith is helping Stewart’s parents with all the information they are receiving, but in the end, he just wants his prodigy to be happy. He’s leaving the decision up to her.
‘I give her the information that I hear from coaches,’ Smith said. ‘I think she’ll make the decisions. I think her parents and myself will help if there are questions, but she’s going to make that decision.’
And although Stewart is a long shot to end up playing for the SU women’s program in the Carrier Dome, Jamesville-DeWitt has someone who could possibly be Boeheim’s next great big man. That big man is Coleman.
‘You can’t be a cocky person,’ Coleman said. ‘You have to go out there and talk to people and make them like you.’
Dealing with college coaches and the recruitment game is nothing new to JD head coach Bob McKenney, as he instructed SU stars Brandon Triche and Andy Rautins when they played for him.
However, Coleman’s recruitment has been on an entirely different level because all of the national attention.
‘We might have been close with Brandon, but not quite,’ McKenney said. ‘Nothing like with DaJuan. Obviously when you can get a (6-foot-8) player that can run the floor and is athletic and strong with soft hands, that’s just a commodity.’
As Coleman and McKenney are both learning to deal with all the national focus and attention, each is realizing that recruiting can sometimes be a dirty game.
‘I will the say the process with DaJuan has been very educational and a little bit different,’ said McKenney. ‘The AAU piece and all the people trying to get in makes you shake your head.’
Though Coleman, along with his coach, is currently working on a list of schools, he insists he won’t make a decision until he has visited some of the schools recruiting him. With two years of high school left, Coleman knows he has enough time to make a decision that could affect the rest of his life. He doesn’t want to rush his decision, but he knows he wants to make the best one for his situation.
Coleman’s opportunity to have every big-name college coach standing at his doorstep is based on how high he has been ranked ever since he started playing high school basketball in eighth grade.
Evan Daniels, a national recruiting analyst for Scout.com, witnessed Coleman’s talents and the skills of his other classmates at this year’s Elite 24 Hoops Classic.
‘Well, first off, he’s a big boy,’ Daniels said. ‘He’s been competing against upperclassmen and done it at a pretty good level. He was at Nike Camp early on as a freshman, and he’s continues to get better. He’s a really big kid with great hands and can really carve out some space inside and has some pretty good skills around the basket with a nice jump hook.’
With two years left before either Coleman or Stewart begins college orientation, both are like any other average teenagers — just with extraordinary basketball talents. Both of them said they will be happy when all of this is over.
Even if it will only be a short amount of time, for Coleman and Stewart, without the pressure of the hawking blue bloods. A short amount of time to be high schoolers in Central New York before those blue bloods are watching them in a gym every day at the next phase of their basketball careers.
‘I’ll be real happy I won’t have to talk to all these coaches at once,’ Coleman said. ‘When that time comes, I’m just going to be ready to focus on school. And I’ll already know what college I’m going to, so I won’t have to worry.’
