Column: Dylan Harper, Rutgers and a broader definition of family
At a gathering in Manhattan on Wednesday, No. 2 overall prospect Dylan Harper committed to Rutgers over Duke, Indiana, Auburn and Kansas.
Seth Davis’ story about Dylan Harper at last summer’s Peach Jam was light on recruiting nuggets but filled with illustrations of daily life in the Harper family. If you subscribe to The Athletic, it’s a great read, one I still recommend. One part did stick out, deserving of a bright red arrow for Rutgers fans:
Ron Sr. is not shy about reminding his son that dad’s decision to attend college 40 miles from his home town of Dayton meant his family members could come to all his college home games. “I told him, your grandma and grandpa have been driving you around since you were one day old, and you can reward them by staying close at Rutgers,” Ron Sr. says.
I think that can be read as the sort of thing a dad says to his son, unsure of how much it’s truly sinking in. In fact, Davis’ story highlighted how Ron Harper Sr. preferred a back seat during Dylan’s high school career and recruitment, with mother Maria much more in charge. On Wednesday, we got an up-close look at the Harper family dynamics.
At a gathering at the Fanatics offices in Manhattan, emceed by Jalen Rose, Harper announced his commitment to Rutgers. The five-star combo guard chose the Scarlet Knights over Duke, Indiana, Auburn and Kansas, becoming the highest-ranked prospect to commit in program history.
For months, this had an air of inevitability. Ask a certain kind of Rutgers fan, and you’d get the impression it was destiny. Ron Harper Jr.’s superstar brother was going to stay home and play for Rutgers. He was going to keep it in the family.
“Family” is one of the biggest cliches in sports. It’s emblazoned on warmup jerseys as though that one word is some profound motto. Every team, college, pro or high school, wants to give the impression that they’re so close and care so much for everyone in the program. Sometimes it’s even true.
Yet as far as Harper’s college choice, I think it’s clear that a number of connections gave Rutgers the upper hand. Not just blood relations, but Ace Bailey, Steve Pikiell and Pikiell’s staff were part of the greater “family” in action. More on them in a minute.
For those who think his family had too much sway – I saw a few social media comments lamenting that Harper would turn down Duke for a school with such little basketball cred – the Harpers tried to emphasize Wednesday that it was Dylan’s decision. Dad sure didn’t guilt him into staying in-state by talking about Grandma and Grandpa. Harper said each of his family members encouraged him to “choose where you want to go. Follow your heart.”
And Harper seems to think playing in front of his family and leaving a legacy in Piscataway would be pretty cool.
“Staying home, staying in my backyard, just playing for everyone that came … watched me come from the beginning till now, it’s really my dream, everyone to come together, being able to support me, even at the highest level,” Harper said.
Ron Jr. was among the family in attendance. His Raptors 905 G League team had a game at the Westchester Knicks. Ron’s status in Rutgers lore is only growing. While Dylan likely turns out to be the better player, Ron made one of the biggest shots in Rutgers history – and would Rutgers have had the edge to sign Dylan if Ron Jr. didn’t go before him and blaze the trail?
“It’s crazy. I’m at a loss for words,” Ron Jr. said. “I remember when he told me for sure what he wanted to do. And it’s funny, man, because I always told him to chase what he wants to do. Whatever makes him happy, really, because I already know how it goes. I went to Rutgers, I had his name follow me around for my whole time there. … I always made sure Dylan knew that no matter where he was going, I was always gonna support him.”
Two key figures couldn’t be in Manhattan in person, but it didn’t take long for Harper to call one of them up on FaceTime.
Harper and Ace Bailey are the consensus No. 2 and 3 overall recruits in the Class of 2024, and freshman year won’t be the first time they play together. Though Bailey is from Georgia, he and Harper reportedly grew close while playing together at elite high school tournaments, USA Basketball U-19 minicamps and, last summer, at Rucker Park in New York. There’s no doubt Bailey was recruiting Harper throughout the year.
This is the most heartening part of all if you’re a Rutgers fan. Make no mistake, Harper doesn’t need to be some solo savior; he’s turning a good-to-great team on paper into a team with astronomical hopes. Rutgers’ Class of 2024 features five tall, athletic players, four of whom rank in the national top 150. We expect former four-star wing Gavin Griffiths and promising guards Derek Simpson and Jamichael Davis to return a year stronger and wiser.
The man in charge of assembling all this, the man whose next task will be to make sure they jell, to make sure they’re a team and not merely a collection of good players, is Pikiell.
Pikiell was in Winston-Salem, N.C., preparing the Scarlet Knights to face Wake Forest when Harper’s announcement happened. Rutgers gave up two long “kill shot” runs, one in each half, to lose 76-57. This year’s team has flaws, but the coach has built up more than enough good will in Rutgers world thanks to back-to-back tournament appearances and now these recruiting victories.
If Dylan Harper choosing Rutgers was destiny, Pikiell sure didn’t treat it that way. He never rested on his laurels, and Harper has frequently said Rutgers recruited him for him, not because of the family tie. “Every time (Harper) steps between the lines, Steve is there. If Dylan had a game on Mars, Steve would hop in one of those space rovers to make sure he’s courtside,” college basketball personality Trilly Donovan tweeted in July.
As NJ.com’s Brian Fonseca said, this marks the first time in the 247Sports composite rankings’ history that Rutgers landed the No. 1 recruit from New Jersey.
That’s probably the best way to illustrate how insane this would have sounded not even 10 years ago, when this program was at the lowest of lows. Mike Rice was fired in April 2013. The program was not ready for the jump to the Big Ten, and it won just nine conference games in the first four years there. It wasn’t cool or exciting for New Jersey’s best players to play for their state university.
Fast forward to Wednesday, and a top high school recruit is saying his goal is to win a national championship. At Rutgers. For the first time ever, the idea isn’t ludicrous. And Rutgers fans have many people to thank for that.