At 7-foot-1 and blessed with the shooting range and athleticism of a guard, Karl Towns is unique.
His college decision was not.
The Piscataway, N.J., product out of St. Joseph’s (Metuchen) went the way of so many high-level prospects, picking Kentucky yesterday over Duke and Florida during a press conference at his school.
“I have two decisions to announce today,” Towns said before the entire school in the St. Joe’s gym. “First is that I will be reclassifying to the 2014 class, and the second decision is that I will be playing basketball at the University of Kentucky.”
Towns, the consensus No. 1 player in the Class of 2015 before the decision, was immediately placed at No. 7 in 2014 by Scout.com.
Towns’ commitment is the latest victory for Kentucky coach John Calipari on the recruiting trail in a year full of them. Calipari already has an absurdly deep 2013 recruiting class that includes highly ranked recruits Andrew and Aaron Harrison, James Young, Marcus Lee and Derek Willis.
Towns, 17, who has a 4.3 GPA, actually played for Calipari this summer on the Dominican Republic National Team at the London Olympics. But Towns said that didn’t factor into his decision as the two didn’t talk about college very much.
Towns is coming off a brilliant freshman season, in which he averaged 12 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in leading St. Joe’s to a 29-2 record and their first NJSIAA Non-Public A title.