Ferguson joins Wildcats as five-star commit No. 3 for Arizona in 2016
Arizona earned another five-star commitment Wednesday when shooting guard prospect Terrance Ferguson announced his pledge to the Wildcats and Sean Miller’s program ending his recruitment for a second time. The Dallas (Texas) API standout originally committed to Alabama last fall but he decided to not sign a National Letter of Intent and opened things up from his commitment earlier in the year.
As soon as that happened Arizona quickly became a player in his recruitment again as Ferguson was one of Miller’s top targets over the summer. That led to an official visit to Tucson a few weeks ago before he went out to Chicago for the McDonald’s All-American Game. After finishing that up along with the Nike Hoop Summit event, Ferguson went back home to make his choice with UA coming out on top the second time around despite some late talk about taking a North Carolina visit.
The No. 12 prospect in the 2016 class, who is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, has a history with Miller after playing for the Arizona head coach last summer on the USA Basketball U19 team in Greece. That experience gave Ferguson a glimpse of what it would be like to play for Miller and when he and his mom were able to make it out to Tucson the visit put it over the top.
“The visit was pretty great,” Ferguson told Rivals.com about the trip last week. “I got to know all the players and see all the coaches, and spend time with coach Miller and see how he was outside the game just as a person. Everything overall it was great. The weather down there was perfect and everything down there was great.”
Baylor and Kanas were in the mix down the stretch as well, but Arizona was the spot that felt like the early favorite after he opened things up and once Ferguson was able to see UA in person that is when it pushed things over the top.
Ferguson now joins fellow five-star recruits Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins along with four-star signee Lauri Markkanen as Arizona’s 2016 class with more spots still to fill. Simmons has been a big recruiter for Arizona once he made his decision and while in Chicago for the McDonald's game the Georgia native would not let up on Ferguson.
“Kobi is probably the hardest recruiter even out of all the coaches,” Ferguson said. “Kobi is probably No. 1, I’m not going to lie. Kobi probably hits my phone at least 20 times a day and that’s just Facetime. Then texts me, then he calls me. Kobi is a cool guy.”
Ferguson is now Arizona’s 16th five-star commitment under Sean Miller and the second in less than a month with Alkins choosing the Wildcats in March.