College offers rolling in for Spalding’s Whitmore
Demand keeps growing for 6-foot-6 forward who was injured as freshman
Cam Whitmore feels like he’s walking through a dream.
These last few weeks, offers from Division I men’s basketball programs have gravitated to the 6-foot-6 small forward like planets to a sun. The Archbishop Spalding rising senior, who is rated a four-star recruit by 247Sports and Rivals, has earned offers from more than 20 schools, including Penn State, Maryland, Florida, Louisville, North Carolina, Alabama, Villanova and Connecticut.
Three years ago, as a freshman with a knee injury, Whitmore never would’ve imagined this.
“I didn’t really know all of these colleges would come after me,” he said, “and that my stock would grow. I didn’t know.”
Whitmore sped through his recovery and started for the Cavaliers as a sophomore. The Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference felt his impact immediately. The 210-pound swingman unleashed a team-high 15.2 points per game on the league in his debut season, helping elevate Spalding from the basement to a position of serious contention.
He also averaged 10.7 rebounds, 2.8 blocks, 2.3 steals and 1.5 assists per game.
His junior season, though condensed due to the pandemic, was even better: Whitmore pelted teams with a torrent of scoring each night. Averaging 22 points and 11.7 rebounds per game, he commanded the Cavaliers to an 11-2 record and a second seed in the Baltimore Catholic League playoffs. He earned the BCL Jerry Savage Player of the Year nod — a title previously earned by two Cavaliers that went pro, Derrick Snowden and Rudy
“It feels great, especially when UNC offered. ‘National school of champions.’ Michael Jordan went there. It’s pretty big.”
Gay. After he received the award, Spalding coach Josh Pratt told the Baltimore Sun that Whitmore is, in 25 years of coaching, “one of the most athletic players I’ve ever had.”
Pratt, who returned to Spalding to coach the team the same year Whitmore began play, fully understands what Whitmore has done to his program.
“We’re generating a lot of buzz and he’s the focal point. He’s the reason,” Pratt said. “I’d be a fool if I [said otherwise]. He’s the reason.”
Because of his freshman year injury, Whitmore didn’t play on the live circuit before his sophomore year. It was a “family decision” between Pratt and the Whitmores — they wanted to ensure he came into 2019-20 at 100% health.
Virginia Tech first took notice of Whitmore, extending him his first offer. But when recruiting fully opened on Whitmore around this time last year, the Cavalier really began to comprehend what was happening to him. More and more big-time programs wanted him, schools that have churned out armies of professional players.
Pratt reckons Whitmore would’ve had an explosive summer last year, too, had there not been a worldwide pandemic, and that would’ve aided his progression. When Whitmore stepped out for his first summer games this year, nerves racked him. He could feel the eyes of college coaches.
“But I just got the nerves out and went out on the floor and showed my results,” Whitmore said.
This past week, while competing for Team Melo at the DMV Live at DeMatha, Jupiter arrived in Whitmore’s growing galaxy of offers: North Carolina.
Whitmore amassed 66 points over two games on Saturday, including nine 3-pointers, and pulled down 26 boards. He went 23-for-31 from the field.
North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis called Whitmore after his performances with the good news.
“It feels great, especially when UNC offered,” Whitmore said. “‘National school of champions.’ Michael Jordan went there. It’s pretty big.”
Alabama offered Whitmore that weekend as well, along with Louisville.
It doesn’t overwhelm him, Pratt said. Whitmore takes it all in stride. Whitmore has made only one official visit so far, to the homiest of his Division I possibilities: Maryland. He’d been to College Park many times before to watch games, but this time, as a potential recruit, he could see himself fitting into a Terps uniform.
“Coach [Mark] Turgeon’s a good coach, great man. Cares a lot about his players,” Whitmore said.
Whitmore said Turgeon expressed to
— Archbishop Spalding’s Cam Whitmore, on getting a scholarship offer from North Carolina
him that he’d utilize the 6-foot-6 forward as a 3-point shooter, something Pratt has seen his star Cavalier become more adept at in this past year. If he continues to improve his perimeter game, Pratt said: “the sky’s the limit.”
But the arc isn’t the only area Whitmore’s grown as a player this year.
“He’s very steady on the floor,” Pratt said. “He doesn’t shrug his shoulders anymore at the free-throw line. He just moves on from it.”
That maturity spread from beyond the foul line. Pratt sees the growth in the way Whitmore interacts with coaches, and his teammates too.
“He’s very responsive with my assistant coaches. He’s engaged. He takes in what they tell him,” Pratt said.
Some recruits, when their stock rises enough, leave their home schools behind for the grandiose programs like Oak Hill Academy or IMG Academy.
But Spalding is Whitmore’s Oak Hill. The team that in two years reached the ceiling of the MIAA went deep in the BCL playoffs, falling to John Carroll by just three points. Pratt saw the disappointment take root in Whitmore.
“I think he really wants to win a championship,” Pratt said.
Whitmore feels pride in the program as well as the attention so many big-time schools recruiting him casts upon Spalding. His prosperity shines on his teammates and those coming in behind him too.
“That was really the main goal,” Whitmore said, “to bring this program back up to when Rudy [Gay] left. That’s what I’m trying to do so that the freshmen, sophomores and juniors coming after me get that same exposure.”
With a pantheon of choices around him, Whitmore can’t really make the wrong decision. Pratt expects he’ll narrow his choices at summer’s end.
But Whitmore knows what his future landing spot needs to provide.
He needs a coaching staff that he can build not only a great basketball relationship, but one that he can talk to about anything. He needs a system that his style of play fits in well with.
“[I need to know] that I can succeed there. How they can develop me into a great basketball player — and an NBA player,” Whitmore said.