Harry Giles will take his last official visit to Duke over Halloween weekend and is targeting a college announcement during the NCAA early signing period Nov. 11-18, Oak Hill coach Steve Smith said Wednesday on The 4 Quarters Podcast.
“He’s talked about maybe doing something on the 12th or the 13th maybe on ESPNU,” Smith said. “They’ve got their recruiting show on that Thursday evening [Nov. 12] or doing something down in Winston-Salem when we’re down there playing so I think his recruiting is coming to a head. And I think once he makes the Duke visit he’ll have almost two weeks for the smoke to clear and talk to his family and get his bearings straight and make the decision that’s best for him and his family.”
The 6-foot-10 Giles is the No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2016 and is the projected No. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft by DraftExpress.com.
He is down to Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Wake Forest, having eliminated North Carolina from consideration.
Smith agrees that Duke appears to be the “frontrunner” for Giles, who could team up with his close friend Jayson Tatum with the Blue Devils beginning in 2016.
Still, Smith said Giles enjoyed his recent visits to Kansas for “Late Night in the Phog” and Kentucky for “Big Blue Madness.”
“I think they [Kentucky] have a chance,” Smith said. “I know everybody thinks he’s going to Duke and they may be the frontrunners still, I’m not sure. He loved his visits to Kentucky and Kansas. I think Kansas opened his eyes a little bit to other programs besides Duke because I think in his mind Duke was the favorite but then he goes to Kansas and he really liked the visit.
“And then he goes to Kentucky the following weekend and now he’s down to just the one visit because he’s not visiting Carolina again. He’s down just to the Duke visit.”
As for Carolina, Smith said that visit was cancelled several weeks ago.
“I think his mom cancelled the visit almost three weeks ago but it didn’t really get out,” Smith said. “And then I said something the other night [to SNY.tv] about him not visiting and it seems to be like Earth-shattering news to everybody. I knew he wasn’t visiting for a long time, I thought everybody else knew.
“He just felt like he wasn’t going to go there. I knew when they came in and met with him, Coach [Roy] Williams said, ‘Look, if we’re not in the picture, just tell us.’ We’d rather know than not know. So I think he told them pretty shortly after that. He had considered not going to a couple of other schools but then he decided to visit the four schools on his list and since he’s done that I think he’s been more open to the recruiting process.
“And Wake Forest obviously is his hometown school and they’ve recruited him very hard. Coach [Danny] Manning has been up here just about every single week of the recruiting period so they’re still very much involved in the picture.
“But I think consensus everybody thinks he’s going to Duke and because of the attraction of staying close to home and because Jayson Tatum is a friend of his. He’s also buddies with some of these other guys going on visits to some of these other schools.”
Smith said it was a “good move” by Duke to get the last visit.
“They have the last visit and that was done purposefully and that was a good move on their part I think because when the smoke clears and his head’s spinning a little bit now he goes to Duke for the final visit, so it’s going to be interesting,” Smith said.
