J.P. Tokoto had just returned from seeing “Karate Kid” with his friends late Tuesday night, when his phone rang at 12:01 a.m. Wisconsin time
“It was Coach [Roy] Williams,” Tokoto said by phone from the NBA Top 100 Camp in Charlottesville, Va.
The 6-foot-6 Tokoto had spoken to the North Carolina coach numerous times but this call was different. Tuesday marked the first day college coaches could call members of the Class of 2012.
“I was very excited,” Tokoto said. “It wasn’t my first time talking to him so at first I thought it was just another phonecall with coach Roy. I was not expecting at the end of the conversation to get an offer, which took me by surprise and left me speechless.”
North Carolina, which also offered Las Vegas shooting guard Shabazz Muhammad in the Class of 2012, became the latest school to offer Tokoto, the No. 4 player in the Class out of Menomonee Falls (Wisc.)
Asked who was on his list, Tokoto rattled off a huge array of offers: Wisconsin, Marquette, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Duke, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Miami, Maryland, Minnesota and Texas.
By the end of the summer of 2011, Tokoto says, “I’ll have at least a list, if not an idea of where I want to go.”
Along with his parents, Trevor and Laurence, he visited both Carolina and Duke during the recent Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions.
Of Carolina he said: “I just liked it. It’s nice out there. I have family out there — an aunt, an uncle and two cousins — which is a plus. Weatherwise, it’s warm.”
As for Duke, he said, “It was awesome, too. We didn’t tour the whole campus. The parts I saw were very nice, very historical from what I saw.”
College coaches regularly come to watch Tokoto play in Wisconsin and for one game, both Williams and Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan attended and ended up sitting next to one another, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
“That was funny,” Tokoto said. “When I’m in the game, I really don’t think about what coaches are watching me. I don’t let that bother me. After the game, I realized I had coach Ryan and coach Roy Williams sitting next to each other. It’s kind of fun.”
Tokoto’s grandfather, also called J.P. Tokoto, played soccer for the Cameroonian national team when he was 15 and also for “a few French teams,” the grandson said.
The younger J.P. played soccer from the age of 3 to 12 before focusing on basketball. He missed the U.S.-Slovenia game Friday but keeps tabs on the World Cup.
“I checked on the scores [Thursday] night,” he said. “I watched Brazil-North Korea.”
At the NBA Camp, his counselors include NBA players James Singleton and Mark Blount.
“I’m learning a lot from them,” he said.
Between the Carolina offer and the NBA Camp, it’s been a busy week for Tokoto, who seems inspired by it all to improve his game.
“Just to be sophomore and to even be recruited by a school of that high level it’s an honor,” he said. “For coach Roy to come out and watch me [during the season], it’s an eye-opener. This is really happening and I’ve got to excel at everything and I’ve got to get better.”
(Photo courtesy Rivals.com)
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