Seton Hall needed a point guard, and it got its man in local product Jordan Walker.
The guard announced his commitment to Seton Hall at a ceremony at The Patrick School on Monday afternoon. He chose the Pirates over 12 other schools that offered, including the University of California, who had recently offered Walker after former point guard Charlie Moore decided to transfer.
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The commitment of Walker does not come as much of a surprise, as he was a fixture at Seton Hall games all of the 2016-17 season, frequently sitting behind the Pirates’ bench.
“They’ve been there since I came first to New Jersey,” Walker said of Seton Hall. “Once I came into The Patrick School they recruited me really really hard and every time I’ve been to their facilities and school, it felt like home to me.”
Walker cited his relationship with assistant coach Shaheen Holloway as a driving force behind his commitment to Seton Hall.
“Me and him have a really good relationship,” Walker said. “Sometimes we talk about things that a teenager would take about and sometimes he helps me and mentors me to make the right decisions.”
At one point, it seemed as if Walker was going to wind up reclassifying to the 2018 class and do a prep year, but he felt like he was ready for the college game now.
“I just had to believe in myself,” Walker said. “Going to prep school would be me being afraid of taking a challenge and going to college, so I feel like going to college right now definitely shows that I’m ready and able to prove people wrong.”
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Standing at six feet tall, some have said that Walker is not physically ready to play point guard in the Big East and that a prep year would have been beneficial to him. In response to those claims, Walker says that the doubters will just have to watch for themselves next season.
“I’m going to tell them like I always tell everybody - watch and see,” Walker said. “When I came to The Patrick School, people said I wasn’t going to do well and I wasn’t going to play and I told them watch and see.”
A three-star recruit according to ESPN, 247Sports and Scout, Walker was the catalyst of a Patrick School team that featured Kentucky commit and McDonalds All-American Nick Richards, leading the team to the program’s sixth Tournament of Champions title. Walker was named the MVP of the TOC final, going for 17 points and five assists in a 69-55 victory over Don Bosco Prep.
Walker will be joining a senior-laden team next season, but he believes that all of the winning that he did as a senior at The Patrick School should help him fit in with Seton Hall’s core group.
“Coming in as a TOC champion and playing with a bunch of seniors who have spent four years at Seton Hall, I feel like we both have a lot of experience winning,” Walker said. “I know how to win, they know how to win and as long as we both know how to win we can do great things.”
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Down the road, The Patrick School features some standout talent in 2018 power forward Valdir Manuel and 2019 guard Al-Amir Dawes. Now that Walker is officially a Pirate, he has an eye on getting his former high school teammates to join him in South Orange.
“I talk to Al and Valdir about it all the time,” Walker said. “I hope I see my little bro Al at Seton Hall, I think it would be great if he comes and plays with me.”
The commitment of Walker marks the first true point guard commit for Seton Hall since Jordan Theodore committed to the Pirates back in 2008.
With Walker now in the fold, Seton Hall has one scholarship remaining for the 2017-18 season.
Tyler Calvaruso can be reached at tyler.calvaruso@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @tyler_calvaruso.
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