Few players, regardless of class, have seen their star rise as quickly as Dennis Smith Jr. After winning a state title as a sophomore, Smith has turned in a dominant junior season and back-to-back exceptional AAU seasons full of mind-boggling highlights and wins. Now, as the top point guard and No. 4 overall prospect in the ESPN 100, Smith’s subsequently got a “who’s who” of college basketball’s elite all intently pursuing him. Smith has agreed to give USA TODAY HSS exclusive access into his world by chronicling everything from intimate details about his recruitment to his everyday life in a monthly blog.
What’s up world, I’m back at it with my 10th blog!
I know it’s been a little while since my last one, but I’m gonna catch y’all up on everything right now.
AAU season is going pretty good; we lost in the adidas Finals to the NY RENS by a few points, which was tough, but we bounced back at the Big Shots tournament in Myrtle Beach right after that.
We dominated the whole tournament and ended up taking home that trophy so that felt great!
I feel like we had a great AAU season as a whole.
Some of you guys may know that I cut my list last week.
Right now it’s down to six, in no particular order: Kentucky, Duke, Louisville, N.C. State, Wake Forest and North Carolina.
The latest offer was from Kentucky and, I’ll be honest, it was surprising. I was shocked by it because Coach Cal had watched me a couple of times before then; he watched me with my man John Wall in Atlanta at adidas and had another coach watch me at Myrtle Beach and the offer came.
I was definitely excited to get the offer for sure. It doesn’t matter that they’re just offering me now; they’re a team I’m considering as much as anyone.
Coach Cal mostly talks with me and my dad on three-way and we’re building our relationship pretty fast. It’s been cool.
We just finished up a tournament in Vegas and that’s pretty much it for the summer now with my team. It’s crazy that my last AAU season is over, but, in a way, I’m glad to relax a little now. I know I’m gonna miss it though.
I have been gone this summer a lot more than I’ve been home; that’s crazy!
It’ll be cool to just chill out with the family and kick it with my friends and maybe go play football or something. A lot of you that read my blog already know that I love football and know that I’ve been getting recruiting letters for football for a while now. That’s nothing new.
Football is just as fun as basketball to me.
I played cornerback and I loved it. I didn’t get a lot of picks because the quarterbacks rarely threw to my side.
I’ve heard from Tennessee, Arizona State, Florida State, Stanford, UNC, N.C. State and Wake Forest for football.
We’ll see what happens down the line.
I definitely wanna shoutout my man Jayson Tatum for committing to Duke!
That’s a great look for him. I was watching the game when he committed and I was excited for him.
Of course y’all know that I’ve talked in my blog about me, Jay and Harry (Giles) teaming up in college and that hasn’t changed. It’s definitely something that we all still talk about and I’d say there’s still a great chance of it.
At the end of the day, I’ve gotta do what’s best for me, but, again, it’s something we still all talk about and it’s definitely the most serious package deal I have with anyone in my class.
OK, I appreciate you guys checking out my blog…
Oh wait, y’all know to look for me in Season 2 of Empire! Haha! My acting skills have gone to another level!
OK, again, thanks for reading my blog, as always.
I’ll be back soon to hit you guys with another one.
Follow Dennis Smith Jr.
Twitter: @Jhooper_3
Instagram: @desmith4