Huskers land 2018 PG Amir Harris
Things were already moving very quickly between 2018 Hagerstown (Md.) St. James point guard Amir Harris and Nebraska, as in less than a month he went from picking up a Husker offer to taking his first official visit to Lincoln.
After making a second visit to Auburn last weekend, the three-star Harris sped things up even further by announcing he planned to make his college decision this Saturday.
Well, keeping up with his rapid recruiting pace, Harris didn’t need to wait that long to know he had found his future school, and he announced his commitment to Nebraska via Twitter on Thursday afternoon.
“Me and my parents talked about what the best option would be and we talked with my coaching staff at my high school, and we all felt it would be better to just go ahead and announce it and just have everyone know instead of waiting and dragging it on,” Harris told HuskerOnline.com.
“It’s been a long process, but I have my decision set and made. I just felt it was time to let everybody know.”
Harris said he has already signed his National Letter of Intent to Nebraska, officially making him the third member of NU’s 2018 class along with Platteview (Neb.) center Brady Heiman and Monteverde (Fla.) Academy wing Karrington Davis.
The Huskers now have one open scholarship remaining in their 2018 class.
Nebraska head coach Tim Miles first extended an offer to Harris during an in-home visit on April 15, and then the Huskers were able to get the 6-foot-5, 195-pound prospect on campus for an official visit on May 1-4.
What struck Harris as much as anything was how Miles was directly involved with his recruitment from the very beginning. That connection quickly spread through the rest of NU’s staff and locker room, as Harris said he immediately felt at home during his trip.
His time in Lincoln was enough to make him consider committing to NU during his visit, but Harris decided to take at least one more official before making a decision. A big reason for that was he was once a verbal commit to Rhode Island before deciding to re-open his recruitment.
“I had that feeling, but after my situation at Rhode Island I didn’t want to make another bad decision,” Harris said. “I wanted to really sit down and talk everything out and see how I really felt about it.
“I wanted to explore my option at Auburn as well, and by doing that I was able to make my choice much better.”
Prior to narrowing down his choices to Nebraska and Auburn, Harris held other offers from Cal, Rhode Island, Temple, Pennsylvania, and a few other mid-majors. He was also getting interest from the likes of Maryland, Oklahoma State, USC, and Virginia Tech.
As a senior at Hagerstown last season, Harris averaged 13.8 points, 7.2 assists, 6.7 rebounds, and 2.5 steals per game.
“I’m a hard worker,” Harris said. “I spend all my time in the gym and just focus on getting better. I’m an all-around player. I like to do a lot of different things, like scoring, creating for others, and I really focus on my defense.
“You have to play defense to thrive in the Big Ten, so getting that kind of opportunity to go against some of the best players in country in that conference, I just felt like that was the best option for me.”