The quest to create a monster 2024 class continued this week as members of Florida’s coaching staff traveled to Atlanta to see wing Jahki Howard.
Howard is currently ranked 47th in the class of 2024, which means for those keeping track at home the Gators have now offered or been in touch with 9 players in the top 50 of this class, including:
Naas Cunningham (3rd)
Flory Bidunga (4th)
Dylan Harper (5th)
Asa Newell (6th)
Liam McNeely (22nd)
David Castillo (25th)
Ryan Jones (38th)
Dedan Thomas (39th)
Jahki Howard (47th)
Peyton Marshall (48)
It’s clear that Golden’s gaze is clearly fixed on a top class in 2024 and he is relishing the opportunity to recruit the best players in the sport–something he simply couldn’t do at San Francisco.
Jahki Howard is teammates with Naas Cunningham playing in the Overtime Elite League, a new basketball startup that is landing some of the top high school talent available. Howard was offered a $100,000 salary to play in this league as a junior but forgoed it in order to maintain his college eligibility. That shows that he’s serious about playing college basketball and isn’t looking to play out the rest of his high school eligibility at Overtime Elite which would be an option available to him.
Heading the Overtime Elite program is Kevin Ollie, who you may remember as the coach of the 2014 National Championship winning UConn Huskies.
Before Overtime Elite, Howard was at Donda Academy, a start-up school and basketball program by rapper Kanye West. Before that he was at basketball powerhouse Norcross Academy in Norcross, Georgia where Howard hails from.
Being an elite athlete in Norcross meant that Howard has always been on college basketball radars but his name really popped up this past summer at the Nike Peach Jam where he played up an age group with Team Thad at the U17 level and still looked like one of the most dominant players on the floor. Howard is 6’6” and 180 pounds and has already been declared by many the bounciest player in the 2024 class known for his acrobatic dunks and athletic domination. Social media is filled with with highlights of Howard nearly jumping over defenders and dunking on him and watching Team Thad’s games there was a countless number of rebounds that looked like they’d certainly fall into the hands of a bigger player on the opposing team before Howard effortlessly floated above them to high point the ball before tossing it out to a teammate.
Howard’s athleticism is mostly shown on the defensive end right now where he takes pride in locking up the best player on the opposing team. It’s a wings’ world right now and many of the best players in the country play the same position as Howard and he loves taking on those matchups, using stops on the defensive end to prove he’s just as good–or even better–than the player he’s locking up.
Offensively there is still work to be done on his game and that has different recruiting services evaluating him differently. Some rankings have him as a top 25 player while others have him closer to 90th, ultimately putting the consensus at 47th in the class. There’s no doubt that everyone sees his athleticism–some scouts are just waiting to see him turn it into a little more offensive production while some scouts think a bouncy 6’6” wing is easily projectable to being dominant at the college level.
Georgetown is said to be in a great place with his recruitment right now while Kansas, Texas, Texas Tech, Illinois, and Duke are also considered in the mix alongside Florida.
Howard is said to be in no rush to make his decision. This is another top-50 player Florida has been in contact with to keep an eye on, particularly because he is teammates with someone the Gators are extremely interested in–Naas Cunningham. Package deals rarely work out in college basketball, but the duo of Naas Cunningham and Jahki Howard is one we’re going to hear a lot regarding Florida recruiting for the next year.