NCAA Basketball Recruiting: 3-star recruits from 2019 class that will excel

CHARLOTTE, NC - MARCH 22: A general view before the start of the Michigan State Spartans versus Virginia Cavaliers in the third round of the 2015 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Time Warner Cable Arena on March 22, 2015 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /

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ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 28: Jarrett Culver #23 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders celebrates after making a basket and drawing a foul against the Michigan Wolverines during the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament West Regional at Honda Center on March 28, 2019 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /

While most of the focus are on the five-star players in the 2019 NCAA Basketball Recruiting class, don’t forget some under the radar players that could have a huge future impact.

With the 2019 NCAA Basketball Recruiting class all but wrapped up (at least those ranked in the top-200), we have a pretty good look at where teams stand. The Memphis Tigers were the big winner, with head coach Penny Hardaway’s AAU connections paying off big time. Programs such as Duke and Kentucky once again got a big haul, while Sean Miller and Arizona got back on track after a subpar previous offseason.

But those programs are all about the top-100 overall players, including five-star prospects. For 330 of the 350+ Division 1 programs, those kinds of players are simply out of reach. That’s okay though, because some of the best players in college basketball have been those of the three-star variety. These are guys projected to hopefully become rotation pieces but some end up way more than that.

Texas Tech Basketball knows about this more than any other team. Zhaire Smith and Jarrett Culver were both former three-star recruits who took advantage of early playing time opportunities to become future first round picks in the NBA Draft. Others who weren’t coveted recruits who had huge 2018-19 seasons included Brandon Clarke of San Jose State/Gonzaga and Ja Morant.

For this piece, I took a look at players who were classified as three-star recruits in the 2019 class. Various recruiting outlets have different rankings, so I used 247sportsComposite as my primary source. The following 10 players who I believe will have a future national presence in college, maybe even as soon as next season.

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