Ohio State's 2019 class is starting to take shape as the Buckeyes already have their second commitment of next year's class as four-star point guard Rikki Harris committed to the Ohio State women's basketball team on Tuesday afternoon.
— Rikki Harris (@rik_2019) December 19, 2017
Harris, an Indianapolis native, is the No 24 player in the nation, according to ESPN's rankings, and the No. 6 point guard.
The Harris File
- Class: 2019
- Height: 5-9
- Pos: PG
- School: North Central High School, (Indianapolis, IN)
- Composite Rating: ★★★★
- Composite Rank: #23 (#6 PG)
ESPN's most recent evaluation of the newest member of Ohio State's 2019 recruiting class is as follows:
Crafty, athletic lead-guard with a scorer's mentality; active in passing lanes, reads pressure, anticipates and makes plays from turnovers; manufactures, mid-range game creator moves to the arc; among the elite guards in the class of 2019.
According to the Indy Star, Harris began playing basketball at the age of three with her brothers, and soon began playing competitively against some of the best boys in the country.
That is, until she was banned from playing with boys in fifth grade after parents of boys on the other team complained.
From the Indy Star:
The parents of her teammates didn’t mind a girl playing with their sons, but parents of the opposing teams were fed up. And now they were coming together to say enough was enough. So Harris was not allowed to play with the boys anymore.
“She couldn’t play because ‘girls go faster than boys,’” William Harris said. “She was dominating the whole tournament. I was saying, ‘How can a girl be banned from playing with boys?’ I couldn’t believe it. Her team didn’t play without her. They didn’t play another game.”
Rikki Harris never played another game with the boys, but North Central’s standout sophomore is still proving to be one of the best players on the court for Class 4A's top-ranked team and is considered one of the best 2019 point guard talents in the state.
...
“Getting thrown around and tossed playing with the boys, it helped me a lot with the girls,” Harris said. “It makes you want to be stronger so you’re as strong as them. It makes you want to go faster so you’re as fast as them.”
Harris joins Jacy Sheldon, a point guard from Ohio's Dublin Coffman High School, giving Ohio State two commitments in what will likely be a huge 2019 class.
The Buckeyes currently have just one player with with more than two years of eligibility, guard Jensen Caretti, and currently have just two players committed in the 2018 class – Aaliyah Patty and Janai Crooms.
