Photograph taken by Under Armour.
Class of 2014 shooting guard Phil Booth hasn’t even completed his junior year of high school yet but he has already accumulated close to a dozen offers. He’s also trying to set up as many visits as possible so he can commit by his target date in the fall.
“In the works is a Temple game and South Florida,” Booth told NRS. “They’ve been recruiting me for a long time and I like the programs so I think I should take visits and see what they’re like. I don’t know exact dates yet; I’m still trying to work that out.”
The 6’3, 185-pound Baltimore native lists offers from Georgetown, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Rutgers, Seton Hall, SMU, South Florida, Temple and Villanova as well as interest from Florida and Louisville, who Booth said has been coming on hard as of late.
“I’m looking for a place I can succeed on and off the court,” he added. “Probably some early playing time when I get there and just a good program.”
In addition to the two trips currently in the process of being set up, he would also like to visit a few other schools. Those trips, however, aren’t likely to happen anytime soon but Booth may get to them soon now that he has completed his junior season at Mount St. Joseph High School (Maryland).
“I’d like to visit Florida and Louisville,” he said. “I want to get down to them and SMU. They’re really good coaches at all three of them with Billy Donovan at Florida, Rick Pitino at Louisville and Larry Brown at SMU and they have some nice campuses.”
Booth has already taken trips to Georgetown, Indiana, Maryland, Seton Hall, Temple and Villanova and enjoyed his most recent trip, which he took earlier this month, the most. While in Bloomington, he witnessed one of the best games in the Big Ten this year.
“My best experience at a visit was at Indiana because of the great game I got to watch against Michigan,” he said. “The atmosphere was the best it could possibly be. It was as loud as it gets and they have good fans. There was also great basketball to watch too.”
Among all of the schools coming after him, Booth identifies Georgetown, Indiana and Villanova as the programs recruiting him the hardest. He also says that he has developed the best relationship with one of those three coaching staffs because of how hard they’re recruiting him.
“Probably I’m closest with Villanova with [head] coach Jay Wright and [associate head] coach Bill Lange,” Booth added. “They come to a lot of my practices and games because it’s not too far away and I keep in contact with them pretty often.”
The Wildcats also have some help because two of their class of 2013 commits are actively recruiting Booth. Booth also has a class of 2013 Indiana commit in his ear about where he should attend college.
“With Villanova, I got Kris Jenkins and Josh Hart trying to get me to go there and Indiana I got Stan Robinson trying to get me to go there,” he said. “Josh Hart has been doing the best job; he’s always talking to me every month about it.”
Even though he hasn’t put together a list yet, the Team Takeover (DC) guard looks to commit in the next eight months. He’s also hoping to narrow down his choice of schools during his last AAU season.
“I’ll make my decision in August through October and narrow a list down in the summer time to about five or maybe three,” Booth added. “I want to get it out-of-the-way before my senior year because I don’t want to play with that burden.”
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