Top-ranked Kentucky basketball recruit Zion Harmon commits to the Hilltoppers
The commonwealth’s highest-rated recruit and one of Kentucky’s most intriguing high school basketball players has made a decision on his next step.
Zion Harmon is staying close to his new home for college.
Harmon — a 5-foot-11 point guard — announced Tuesday that he has committed to Western Kentucky, and there’s still a chance that he could join the Hilltoppers in time for next season.
The well-traveled basketball star grew up in Maryland and was living in Tennessee before moving to Kentucky for his eighth-grade year, when he emerged as a key player at Bowling Green and helped lead the Purples to the Sweet Sixteen championship in 2017.
After that title season, Harmon transferred from Bowling Green to Adair County and averaged 32.7 points per game, earning national freshman of the year honors from MaxPreps.com. The previous summer, he won a FIBA gold medal with the USA Basketball junior team and made his debut on the highest level of the Nike travel circuit, emerging as a national recruiting target along the way.
Harmon ultimately chose Western Kentucky after taking additional official visits to Kansas, Maryland and Seton Hall. Murray State was also on his list of finalists. His father, Mike Harmon, told the Herald-Leader that Louisville dropped out of the recruitment a few weeks ago after extending a scholarship offer earlier in the process. Harmon also visited UK in the past, but the Wildcats never showed any substantial interest.
Following his breakout freshman campaign, Harmon endured a major setback when he was ruled ineligible for the 2018-19 season after transferring to Marshall County. There was a prolonged eligibility battle, but he never saw the court as a sophomore.
His standing as a top recruit didn’t take much of a hit.
Harmon averaged 14.3 points and 6.2 assists per game on the Nike circuit last summer and nearly led Marshall County to a spot in the Sweet Sixteen this season, averaging 25.4 points per game for the Marshals, who lost to McCracken County, 43-42, in the 1st Region title game.
The dynamic guard is ranked by ESPN as the No. 20 overall prospect in the 2021 class. He is the No. 40 overall player in the class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings.
There has been ample speculation surrounding Harmon and reclassification, though the star player did not announce any such plans Tuesday.
Mike Harmon said Monday that his son should have no academic hurdles to reclassification — if he chooses to move to the 2020 class — noting that he has already finished his core classes for NCAA eligibility (with a 3.65 core GPA) and completed the ACT entrance exam. Harmon’s father said that if his son had returned for another year at Marshall County, he would be taking all college-level courses. Zion turned 18 years old this month.
As it stands, Western Kentucky has just one commitment for the 2020 recruiting class: Collins guard Dayvion McKnight, who signed with the Toppers in the fall and is among the favorites for Mr. Basketball honors in Kentucky this season. In a Herald-Leader preseason poll of Kentucky high school coaches, McKnight and Harmon were voted the top two players in the state.
WKU should also return quite a bit of talent from this season’s team, which had a 20-10 record and finished just one game behind Conference USA champion North Texas before the league tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The returning group could be led by Lexington native Taveion Hollingsworth, the team’s leading scorer as a junior this season.
Mike Harmon, who currently works in Washington, D.C., acknowledged the ups and downs that his son has gone through after his move to Kentucky as a middle-schooler but said their high school journey within the commonwealth has been a positive one.
“It’s been a great challenge for him,” he said. “Overall, for me, I felt like it was great. I always put him in situations where he’s going to be challenged to the highest level. And he was challenged in every game — he had to deal with double- and triple-teams, box-and-ones, two people, three people coming at him. It only made him stronger.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 2:16 PM.
