NEW YORK — On Friday night in Brooklyn, a gym full of spectators and the country’s top college coaches crowded around Trevon Duval in the Under Armour Association event at Basketball City.
The class of 2017 ESPN top-ranked point guard did not disappoint.
Duval went off for 24 points – showing some serious range on a few three point buckets – while dishing out four assists and grabbing four rebounds as his team We-R1 defeated Team Beast Mode 71-50. As good as advertised, Duval displayed a bevy of quick handle moves and crossovers that left his defenders grasping at air.
The 6-foot-2 guard was aggressive from the tip just to show those watching what’s in store for the future.
“I wanted to come out with an aggressive mentality and show everyone that this is how the rest of my spring and summer is going to be.” Duval said.
Longtime New York talent evaluator Tom Konchalski was in attendance for Duval’s performance. The scout pieced together the point guard’s developing game.
“He’s a guy with tremendous athleticism, a high degree of skill, and at times he tends to play too much off his athleticism,” Konchalski said. “He’s not really a point guard now. “But he has explosive athleticism, he has a great first step, he gets to the basket. He can become a very good outside shooter, but because he can create a shot any time he wants, he settles rather than selects. And he takes some bad shots. He takes shots when he’s not on balance, and he’s athletic enough that he can compensate in the air for that and make some of them. Overall, the physical dimension I don’t know if there is any guard his size who is projected as a point guard in the class of 2017 that has his natural ability.”
Konchalski added that what Duval needs to focus on now is to “learn the game from the neck up, because with point guards it’s only the last four inches that count, from the eyebrows on up.”
After his game, Duval addressed the recruiting process he is going through right now. Of the schools that are hot on him at he moment, the guard mentioned Villanova, Seton Hall, Maryland and SMU by name. But added, “A little bit of everyone sort of. It’s a lot.”
Villanova, fresh off a national championship victory, is in Duval’s ear letting him know what they can bring to a table as a program for the elite prospect.
“As soon as they won the assistant coach texted me and told me that could be me in a couple years, that they had that type of caliber program to win championships,” he said.
“It just shows me that one, it’s crazy that a national championship team is recruiting me and also that they’re a really good program,” Duval added. “They’re very disciplined and they have a lot of good players and they’re a really good team.”
Seton Hall associate head coach Shaheen Holloway was front row for Duval’s game as well. The guard, born in Brooklyn, recognizes the local Pirates team commitment to him.
“Seton Hall’s been there from the very beginning,” he said. “They’re one of the first schools that started recruiting me and offered me. I’m going to keep Seton Hall around and see where they fit at.”
Apart from Big East schools, other conferences are heavily showing interest in Duval. Maryland consistently keeps contact with who they hope is their future point guard. “I hear from Maryland a lot,” he said. “At least two, three times a week they try to stay in contact and keep me updated and just check on me.” Duval elaborated on the Terps pitch to get him to commit to College Park. Simple, but enticing. “Next Melo Trimble,” Duval said of Trimble, who will test the NBA Draft waters but hasn’t hired an agent. “I think they use Melo really good. They ran everything through him, set pick and rolls for him, ran him through screens, use him to his full capactiy – and he showed his full skills and everything so that was pretty good.” As the spring and summer circuits kick up Duval spoke about cutting his potential schools down to a short list. “Visits are gonna happen whenever I’m free,” he said. “And cutting my list down is something I sort of thought about, but I think I’m just going to wait until after the spring or in the summer.” On official visits Duval added, “Honestly I wish I could take an official visit to every school to see what they got and see what they want to show me.” Follow Dennis on Twitter Follow Adam Zagoria on Twitter And like ZAGS on Facebook NN