The McDonald's All-American game will take place on Wednesday night and it features some of the best high school basketball players in the nation. Many of the players in the game have already decided where they will play their college ball, but some have not. This game gives committed recruits an opportunity to make a pitch to some of the undecided players to join them next year.
That is exactly what Arizona commit Kobi Simmons seems to be doing with five-star guard Terrance Ferguson. Ferguson did verbally commit to Alabama already but at the beginning of March he decided to re-open his recruitment.
Once Ferguson decided to re-open his recruitment many teams came calling for the 6-foot-5 shooting guard and that shouldn't be a surprise considering his extremely high talent level. Ferguson is ranked as the 13th best player in the 2016 class and the fourth best shooting guard. Alabama loses a lot by Ferguson backing out of his commitment but whichever school he chooses to go to instead gains a lot by adding the Dallas native.
Ferguson seems to have his list down to three schools - Arizona, Baylor and Kansas. Ferguson took an official visit to Arizona last weekend but he said he still plans to take visits to both Baylor and Kansas when he finds the time which likely means a decision isn't all that close. Ferguson hasn't tipped his hand as to which way he is leaning but it seems as though Arizona is the heavy favorite to land him for now.
Arizona likely has the big early lead over hometown Baylor because Ferguson has already taken an official there, but Simmons may be having some sort of influence on him, too. Simmons and Ferguson are together at the McDonald's All-American game and Ferguson says that Simmons is pushing hard for him to join him as a Wildcat.
Simmons downplayed his recruitment of Ferguson this week but he did say that he has thrown in a few jokes about the two of them playing together at Arizona next year. As it stands currently, Arizona has the seventh best recruiting class in the nation with five-stars Simmons and Rawle Alkins being joined by four-star Lauri Markkanen. That class ranking has a chance to get a whole lot better though, because they are the favorites for Ferguson and are also one of the final three schools on consensus top-three recruit Josh Jackson's list.
