I’m not sure that’s an entirely accurate statement. Whether he should have 3 or 4 imaginary star emojis next to his name on a website I don’t know and don’t really give a shite about. But I don’t think this one fell through the cracks. He had P5 offers apparently and at the very least, he was on their radars and having conversations. CKE just did a great job on selling him on the vision of where Mason Basketball is heading and where he fits into that, and Austin chose what he felt was the best situation for himself.
Q, I had a hard time sleeping last night so I did some reading on young Mr. Ball’s recruitment. At one point LAST FALL, he was ranked in the top 100 by both Rivals and 247, and was being recruited hard by Danny Manning at Maryland and an assistant at Okie State to go along with WVU and VT.
Then all he did last winter was lead his team to the state semifinals while earning first-team all-state honors. Did he suffer a serious injury? No. Academic issues? With Richmond in the mix, highly doubtful. Legal/off-court problems? None that I found online.
But even after having a good spring and very good summer, Austin somehow was no longer on the radar of any P5 schools … other than Mason, the other 2 programs most interested were Richmond and JMU.
I’ve never seen a kid plummet in the rankings like him while being fully healthy and playing well. The closest comp I can think of for a Mason recruit was Sherrod Wright, who also had multiple P5 offers and yet somehow was still available in the spring to take a scholarship offer from L.
It’s kind of mind-boggling, in this day and age where there’s more information available on recruits than ever before, that a bouncy 6-7 guard with limitless shooting range was even available to be scooped up by our excellent head coach.
247sports.com
