Auburn Basketball Recruiting: Jalen Green headlines list of elite prospects who have set official visits to the Plains
September 3, 2019
Jay Phillips
AUBURN, AL — Big-time college basketball prospects from across the country have waded through oceans of recruiting mail this summer. They’ve poured over scholarship offers from schools all over the country and have done their best to trim the fat so to speak in order to narrow down their list of favorite schools and in turn schedule official visits to those fortunate institutions.
Bruce Pearl’s Auburn basketball team, fresh off the school’s first ever run to the Final Four, happens to be one of those popular programs who has garnered plenty of interest from the nation’s most elite prospects. Some of those top tier recruits have reaffirmed their interest in the Tigers by scheduling their official visits to the Plains.
And while we realize Auburn football season just kicked off, one of the benefits of being an “everything school” is the fact that basketball news is inevitably going to crossover into football season. Besides, here at P.O.D. we think it’s important to keep you abreast on the latest happenings of the only current SEC team who has won the conference championship in back-to-back seasons (2017-18 Regular Season SEC Champions, 2018-19 SEC Tournament Champions), so without further ado…
Five-star Jalen Green has scheduled an official visit to Auburn for the weekend of the Mississippi State football game. Green is rated the No. 3 overall prospect by 247, Rivals and ESPN, and the shooting guard has already generated buzz as a potential No.1 NBA draft pick in 2021.
Green, who has scheduled his commitment date for Christmas Day, came as a surprise visit for most Auburn fans, but the two-guard told Rivals that the schools he plans on visiting are the ones who have recruited him the hardest and the most consistently. (https://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/news/jalen-green-schedules-five-visits-discusses-commitment-timeline)
247 has predicted that Green will go to Memphis (83%) or Kentucky (17%), but shortly after announcing where he will visit, Green posted the following on his Instagram story:
“It might be a school y’all don’t expect for people who think they kno”
Green also re-posted a picture of himself and Sharife Cooper in an Auburn-themed edit that read “Dynamic Duo” with both players sporting Auburn jerseys.
*Editor’s Note: Allow us at Power of Dixieland to acknowledge how grateful we are that @aubawn joined the team because he is the only person that’s going give you hard-hitting knowledge like the aforementioned nugget.
While Green seems like a long shot, his connection to Cooper and his confirmed scheduled visit to Auburn should give the Tigers a legitimate chance to grab the talented playmaker by the heartstrings.
Of course we as fans know that Auburn’s uniquely special, but we want Jalen Green to know that there’s just something different about the Loveliest Village on the Plains. When a prospect schedules an “official visit” to Auburn, it allows the program the opportunity to show the prospect just how special this place is.
The coaching staff, and the fans for that matter, do a fantastic job of rolling out the red carpet whenever a big-time recruit visits the Loveliest Village. In the past, top basketball prospects have gotten to experience the thrills of Auburn Football’s Tiger Walk as an honorary guest and walk through the sea of humanity while exchanging high-fives with fans and hearing their names being called out among the die-hards.
The other Top 10 player, forward Greg Brown, will visit the Plains on Iron Bowl weekend so I can only imagine how insane his visit will be. Auburn has cemented itself as the dark horse in Brown’s recruitment, and his Iron Bowl visit will be his second trip to the Loveliest Village since the Tigers’ Final Four birth.
In addition to Brown and Green, Auburn will host at least four more Top 50 prospects for various football games so I’ve graciously provided the dates with a single tweet. Remember, if you’re at Tiger Walk and happen see one of these prospects during their visit, welcome them to Auburn.
Cliff Omoruyi, a four-star big man from New Jersey is another Top 50 prospect set to visit the Plains. Back in February, basketball insider Adam Zagoria said Auburn was working as hard as anyone for Omoruyi’s commitment.
Four-star Matthew Murrell is a shooting guard who played at IMG last season. He has listed Auburn as one of his five final schools, but he is thought to be a heavy Vanderbilt-lean.
Jaemyn Brakefield is a versatile four-star forward who Sharife Cooper recently said he was interested in playing with, along with Green, Walker Kessler, Greg Brown and others.
Cam Thomas, another five-star guard who played for Oak Hill Academy and the AAU team “Boo Williams,” will visit Auburn the same weekend as Green. This also seems like an ideal weekend for Pearl and company to invite other top-targets to visit.
Five-star center Walker Kessler and five-star point guard Sharife Cooper haven’t announced any official plans to visit Auburn but they have both visited the Plains numerous times and are likely to return in the future, whether unofficially or for an official visit.
The two primetime prospects from Georgia headlined Auburn’s Fish Fry Weekend and seem like likely candidates to visit the Plains this fall alongside other big names.
If Kessler and Cooper do visit, that will mean that (at least) eight of the Top 50 players in the country will visit Auburn this fall, assuming all of the scheduled dates come to fruition.
That’s unheard of. Surreal. Hard to wrap your mind around. Kind of like Auburn making the Final Four, which Pearl and staff have undoubtedly taken advantage of by recruiting at a level that has never been seen on the Plains.
The Tigers are still heavily involved with other players such as four-star Jayden Stone and four-star Chris Moore, but they have not set any official visit dates with Auburn for this fall.
