One of the highest profile recruits coming into the WCC next year is Gonzaga commit Josh Perkins out of Huntington Prep High School in Huntington, West Va. If the name of the school sounds familiar it should be, as former high profile recruits Andrew Wiggins and OJ Mayo played high school ball there during their senior seasons (Huntington has effectively become the next Oak Hill Academy, which was famous for getting senior transfers from all over the nation; the list include Carmelo Anthony, Josh Smith and DeSagna Diop to name a few). Originally from the Denver, Colorado-area, Perkins looks to be the kind of player that could continue Gonzaga's great tradition of producing effective guards.
ESPN currently rates Perkins as the 38th best recruit in the nation according to their Top-100, and also considered UCLA and Minnesota before signing with the Zags. Even though Kevin Pangos and Gary Bell are most likely going to return for the senior seasons, Perkins looks like he could be a good sixth man off the bench next year for the Zags as a guard, especially with longtime and popular point guard David Stockton graduating this year.
What they are saying about Perkins
From Rivals.com (graded him a four-star recruit and 46th best in the nation)
"A very flashy playmaker from Colorado who sees open teammates pretty much anywhere on the floor. Whips passes with either hand and makes plays in transition. On offense he favors pull-up jumpers and sometimes settles. Opponents who can really move laterally can bother him."
From Scout.com (graded him a four-star recruit and the fifth-best point guard in the nation)
"More than anything, Perkins is a sensational passer. He makes the difficult ones look easy and can make the easy ones difficult, but his abilities in this regard are indisputable. Perkins also is a talented scorer. He doesn't draw as much praise for that for that ability and understandably so, but he knocks down three-pointers on the high side of screens and shoots well setting himself up off the dribble."
From Slipper Still Fits (Gonzaga SB Nation Blog)
"Perkins is undoubtedly one of the highest rated recruits to ever commit to Gonzaga. He had offers from outstanding programs across the country, most notably UCLA, Minnesota, Connecticut, Arizona, and Stanford. He received significant interest from Kentucky, Syracuse, and Kansas as well. He is currently a top-30 prospect on both Scout and Rivals which is similar to where Austin Daye was rated and slightly higher than where Matt Bouldin checked in at when he arrived at Gonzaga."
Catholic Coast Hoops Quick Analysis
When you watch Perkins on tape, he is just a phenomenal passer. He simply has an uncanny ability to find the open man with extraordinary quickness and accuracy. If anything, he reminds me a lot of a taller Sebastian Telfair with his ability to handle the ball, drive and find his teammates with ease (and I do NOT use that comparison frugally; I watched Jonathan Hock's "Through the Fire" like a dozen times). While I do not have stats on his current shooting stats, scouts rate him as a solid shooter, and his form looks good on tape, as he is able to pull up and shoot the jumper quickly when his team is in transition. Scout.com also raved about his 3-point shooting, rating it as one of his strengths as a player along with his passing and court vision.
The Slipper Still Fits, which has been following him in person for a good while (one of the main writers of the blog lived in Denver and used to see him when he was still going to high school in Denver), remarked he was one of the highest profile recruits since Austin Daye (Daye was one of the first truly "High Profile National Recruits" the Zags signed, though some argue Jeremy Pargo holds that honor since he was a pretty highly rated recruit of Chicago). I sort of agree with the assessment, though I think Kevin Pangos and Przemek Karnowski would have been rated higher had they been "American" recruits (both guys played for the international squad in the Nike Hoops Summit their senior years, which is just slightly below the McDonald's All American Classic in terms of prestige). Nonetheless, Perkins is a legitimate recruit, and much like Daye back in 2007, I believe Perkins will be making plenty of buzz when he arrives on campus next Fall (or technically Summer, since most basketball recruits come to take classes in the summer to get a head start). Because of Pangos and Bell's presence next year, I don't think Perkins will break out as a star or have the kind of immediate impact those two had when they arrived. That being said, I think he'll be a key factor in the Zags' rotation his rookie campaign and earn a sizable chunk of playing time that will develop him to have his true breakout in his sophomore season.
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