By ADAM ZAGORIA
Vernon Carey, the 6-foot-11 big man from the University School (FL) and Nike Team Florida, has set four official visits, Nike Team Florida coach Jimmy Carr told ZAGSBLOG.
Carey will visit Kentucky (Oct. 12), Duke (Oct. 19), Miami (Oct. 26) and North Carolina (Nov. 2). Both Kentucky and Duke will be during their Midnight Madness events.
“He could take advantage of that new rule and possibly Michigan State as well,” Carr said of a possible second visit to Michigan State.
Carey this summer won his second straight gold medal with USA Basketball, this one with the USA U17 team in the FIBA U17 World Championship in Argentina.
At Peach Jam, he broke down his top schools, starting with Kentucky.
“Coach Cal texted me and said just keep on playing hard,” Carey said then. “He loves the way I play so that’s pretty much what he was saying to me.”
Asked if he could see himself playing with Kentucky target James Wiseman, Carey said, “Yes, for sure.”
Miami hasn’t missed a game from Carey or teammate Scottie Barnes in four years.
“Just them recruiting me since Day One in ninth grade, they’ve been on me,” he said.
Duke is also heavily in the hunt.
“Duke was texting me this past whole week about Argentina and Coach K wants me to get on campus as soon as possible,” he said.
Carey saw Duke big man Marvin Bagley III go No. 2 in the NBA Draft and knows that Duke “gets their bigs better over time. That’s what I’m looking at in a program.”
As for North Carolina, he said: “North Carolina, Roy said he’s going to try to be at every game this weekend so their recruiting pitch is really interesting to me.”
As for Michigan State, he said, “Coach Izzo says, ‘Just keep up playing hard and he said one of his assistants will be at every one of my games.”
He hopes to decide “before my birthday….in February.”
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