The Vols’ top target in the 2018 recruiting cycle isn’t heading to Tennessee. In fact, he isn’t heading to any college program period.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Anfernee Simons, who reclassified into the 2018 class after originally being in the 2017 class, is forgoing college and will head into the 2018 NBA Draft.
Guard Anfernee Simons of IMG Academy is entering the NBA Draft, his agents Drew Rosenhaus and Bobby Petriella tell ESPN. Simons is No. 19 in ESPN’s most recent mock draft.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 22, 2018
Simons is rated as a five-star and the No. 7 overall player in the country according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. The 6-foot-4 combo guard down in IMG Academy in Florida was once committed to Louisville before the FBI probe news hit. Once that happened, he decommitted and has been heavily pursued by many schools since.
Tennessee was one of the teams with the biggest interest in Simons, and they hosted him back in January during the weekend of the Vols’ 76-65 victory over Kentucky. Rick Barnes visited Simons back in December as well.
But it might end up being a good thing for Tennessee that Simons didn’t go to college after all.
With Memphis hiring Penny Hardaway as their head coach, news was coming out that Simons was more interested in the Tigers now and was leaning towards them instead of the Vols if he was going to end up in college.
None of that matters now, however.
The Vols still have one scholarship available in the 2018 class. They’re attempting to get borderline three-star/four-star in-state point guard Tyler Harris to visit campus soon, and they just offered UConn decommit and four-star point guard James Akinjo this week.
