JERSEY CITY, N.J. — On a mid-September Monday afternoon, no less than five combined basketball coaches from Rutgers and Seton Hall sat in the bleachers watching an open gym at Hudson Catholic High School.
Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard and associate head coach Shaheen Holloway were making their presence known. So were Rutgers associate head coach Karl Hobbs and assistants Brandin Knight and Jay Young.
The objects of their attention were three Class of 2018 stars who play for head coach Nick Mariniello at Hudson Catholic and also run with the Sports U AAU team: point guard Jahvon Quinerly, shooting guard Luther Muhammad and small forward Louis King.
“[Seton Hall and Rutgers] want to recruit New Jersey and New Jersey’s a big part of what they’re trying to do,” Mariniello told me. “The metropolitan area is important, and for the locals to be successful they have to recruit from this area that’s got so many high-level players in it.”
As I wrote in this column last week, Quinerly, Muhammad and King — as well as their fellow “Fab Five” teammates Naz Reid and Atiba Taylor — are in high demand, not just in New Jersey but nationally.
Louisville coach Rick Pitino is expected at Hudson Catholic on Friday for King, while Arizona’s Sean Miller was in last week for Quinerly and St. John’s Chris Mullin was in to see Muhammad. On the two days I’ve been to open gyms at the school, assistants from Virginia, Louisville and UConn were there, along with those from Robert Morris and NJIT.
“A lot of schools are still working on ’17s, so a school could be recruiting Player A and the need might change in six months from now,” Mariniello said. “So I think that’s a big part of the recruiting process is to see who’s committing where because these kids want to play.
Still, Mariniello and his players point out that Seton Hall specifically has done an excellent job forging relationships with the 2018 kids.
“Obviously, Seton Hall has done a great job,” Mariniello said. “Seton Hall has done a great job building relationships with the kids and the parents and making themselves accessible at Seton Hall games. They’re winning, they won the Big East championship, they have a great coaching staff. They’re doing a good job. At the end of the day, kids want to play and they want success. But I think they’re doing a great job recruiting my guys and they’ve built solid relationships.
“Rutgers obviously has a new staff. Rutgers’ guys are a good group of guys but you’ve gotta give them time to get involved and they’ve done a good job. They have a lot of catching up to do — and it’s not their fault — with them getting the jobs late.”
The 6-1 Quinerly, a smooth, poised floor general who is now being recruited at the highest levels with places like Kansas and Arizona getting involved, also spoke highly of Seton Hall.
“Definitely, this is the second time they came in this week so it’s great because they’re consistent unlike a lot of other schools,” Quinerly said. “I love Coach Willard, I love Coach Sha, they’re two great guys.”
Seton Hall was the first to offer the “Fab Five” as a group and continues to work hard, especially for the Hudson Catholic kids.
“They working really hard,” Muhammad said. “They text every other day, they come and see us. They see how we doing. They working hard, really hard.”
Asked (yet again) if it’s realistic that more than one of the so-called “Big Three” or “Fab Five” would attend college together, Quinerly said: “Yeah, it’s definitely realistic. We talk about it. I just can’t give you any guaranteed answer.”
Asked if Rutgers was developing relationships with them, Quinerly said, “Yeah, not as much as Seton Hall. Seton Hall’s been more consistent and they’ve been there since Day One. Rutgers just came in. Well, they didn’t just come in, but they came in a little bit after Seton Hall. It’s still a great experience. Brandin Knight, we talk on a regular basis.”
Again, with places like Louisville, Arizona, Kansas, UConn, Maryland, St. John’s and more now involved for the Hudson Catholic guys, it would seem less likely A) that they’re going to stay local and B) that they would go in any kind of package.
“It’s realistic [that we would go together] but it does make it harder,” Muhammad said of the interest from other schools. “When all the big schools, I won’t say big schools, all the other schools in the country come and recruit all of us. So it makes [for] a tough decision”
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