Oklahoma State Basketball: Is Cade Cunningham a “decade-defining” recruit?
By Cody Larson
Oklahoma State Basketball scored the top-ranked recruit, Cade Cunningham, for the upcoming 2020-21 season. Here is a look at just how special, or perhaps even decade-defining, he might be.
College basketball’s 2020 recruiting class is egregious. Most notably because, near the top of the class, it is loaded with superstar-caliber talent. It is a class that has a plethora of players who would normally sit at the top of most other years’ recruiting rankings.
There is internet sensation, Jalen Green, who has been dubbed as a “unicorn” (despite being a guard) by many high school basketball fans. Green is actually starring for his own NBA G-League team next year. Joining him there is Jonathon Kuminga, a 17-year old kid in a man’s body, who possesses an unreachable (for most) ceiling.
There is the crafty BJ Boston, a player who has already had a gazillion of his games broadcasted on ESPN. Or there is Evan Mobley, a 7-footer who has the playmaking tendencies of a point guard…again, at 7-feet tall. There are elite forward initiators like Jalen Johnson and Scottie Barnes. Or there are athletic/shooting point guard hybrids like Jalen Suggs and Caleb Love.
For repetitiveness’ sake, the listing will stop there. But just know this: the list of headline-worthy names is very elastic. And yet, nevertheless, none of those names actually headline the 2020 recruiting class.
Even in a class where a recruit separating themselves from the pack seemed impossible, one recruit still managed to do exactly that. That recruit is none other than Cade Cunningham, a prototypical 6-foot-8 point guard headed to Oklahoma State.
Cunningham is the best player in what seems to be the best recruiting class in recent memory. It is not particularly close either; he is that good. It is that fact – combined with the fact that he is attending Oklahoma State this next year – that is ironic; considering that the Cowboys are (currently and controversially) banned from the 2020 NCAA Tournament.
As good as having a player like Cunningham must feel for Cowboys fans, knowing they will never see him compete in March Madness must be equally torturous.
March Madness is the place where schools, players and fan bases live in college basketball immortality. Oklahoma State seemingly had that taken away from them.
They lost their chance to make their mark on the history books; to have a season that fans could look back on for years and years to follow.
But what if Cunningham is, as he was earlier described, “that good?” What if he is perhaps good enough to be one of the best recruits that college basketball sees during the entire 2020s decade? What if he, like Anthony Davis and Zion Williamson did for the 2010s, defines the 2020s…in an Oklahoma State Basketball jersey?
Perhaps then, the Cade Cunningham experience could be similarly close to the March Madness experience; perhaps it could be just as memorable, if not more.
Whether or not would not only be dependent on Cowboys fans’ feelings, but also on the fact if Cunningham actually is what one might call a “decade-defining” player. People who do not know his game might scoff at such an assumption. And they would be fair to do so; it does seem like quite the assumption. But upon a deeper dissection of both Cunningham’s game and background, it might be less crazy than initially thought.
Because Cunningham is the real deal, which became undeniably clear in USA Basketball’s FIBA U19 World Cup gold medal victory over Mali Basketball.