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How do you go from this...
Making a top 5 later this week!
— Juwan Durham (@JuwanDurham) August 31, 2015
...to this?
This was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made but I'd like to announce that I will be committing to the University of Connecticut ⚪️
— Juwan Durham (@JuwanDurham) September 1, 2015
The Kevin mother-effing Ollie effect, that's how.
Juwan Durham, ranked the No. 27 in the Class of 2016 on Rivals, announced his verbal commitment to UConn with that tweet. The Tampa, Florida native has been off the court for a while with an ACL injury, but schools have still been coming on strong, including UNC, Indiana, Kansas, Syracuse, Florida, Louisville, Texas and more.
Durham visited UConn the weekend of Aug. 28 and had a visit to Miami scheduled for mid-September which is probably not happening anymore.
This is a big pickup for UConn in the Class of 2016, as the Huskies really needed some youth up front. Durham is a 6-foot-9-inch power forward who saw his interest skyrocketing before his injury. He can play center as well and brings a strong defensive presence to the floor. He's an inside-out player offensively with a solid jumper but can also get to and finish around the rim. He says he models his game after Kevin Garnett and Zach Randolph.
There were constant rumblings from outsiders was that Kevin Ollie wouldn't be able to recruit playing in the American Athletic Conference and he won the 2014 championship with Jim Calhoun's players and was destined for failure (Ollie was the team's lead recruiter as an assistant). After adding Daniel Hamilton and Rodney Purvis in 2014, Jalen Adams and Steve Enoch in the Class of 2015 and winning big time in the transfer market with graduate transfers Sterling Gibbs and Shonn Miller and VCU-transfer Terry Larrier, one would think that this nonsense can be put to rest. The success in the Class of 2016, which is now three strong with Durham, Alterique Gilbert and Mamadou Diarra, should put an end to that hilariously flawed line of thinking.