GA’s Longino, Wood’s Diggins heading to Big East
Two of the top high school prospects off the market
Jordan Longino and Rahsool Diggins will be seeing plenty of each other over the next few years.
Two of the top boys’ basketball players in the Class of 2021, Longino and Diggins both announced their college plans last week and made a couple of Big East programs quite happy. Longino, a rising senior at Germantown Academy, will be staying close to home at Villanova while Diggins, a rising senior at Archbishop Wood, has committed to UConn.
As the programs renew a storied rivalry with UConn returning to the Big East, Longino and Diggins figure to have a strong influence on those first few new chapters.
Both guards announced their decisions via social media as a bridge between highly productive and decorated junior seasons and a senior year that still has clouds of uncertainty above it.
Longino, who started drawing major Division I interest as a freshman, had his pick of destinations from a long list that included big names like Ohio State, Indiana, Marquette, Virginia, Maryland, Florida and UConn. Villanova extended an offer to the 6-foot-5 guard on December 15, 2019 and quickly became the front-runner.
On Thursday, Longino posted a short video to his Twitter feed to make the outcome many had projected official. Entering GA’s gym in Nike EYBL gear from his since-cancelled AAU season, Longino sat down at a table with a short highlight package running before he reappeared in a Villanova shirt.
“As you can see, I only had a top one. Go ‘Cats,” Longino said closing his announcement.
After a junior years where he averaged 22.4 points per game, Longino was selected First Team All Inter-Ac and in April, was selected as the PA Sportswriters Class 4A Player of the
Year. A two-sport standout, Longino was also fielding some Division I interest as a quarterback but decided in the spring he would pursue basketball at the next level.
With 1,562 career points in three years at GA, Longino is in position to break Alvin Williams’ school record of 1,702 points. Williams, a 1993 graduate, also played collegiately at Villanova before moving on to the NBA.
Longino is the third fourstar recruit in Villanova’s 2021 class, joining guard Trey Patterson and center Nnanna Njoku. He is the latest area player to sign with the Wildcats, joining 2019 Abington grad Eric Dixon and 2017 Archbishop Wood graduate Collin Gillespie.
While Villanova has established itself as one of the premier college men’s basketball programs in the country over the past halfdecade, UConn is trying to restore its place in that hierarchy and sees Diggins as a keystone piece to that rebuild.
The Huskies will return to Big East competition this coming season after just finishing a three-year nonconference series with Villanova.
Landing Diggins, who was named the PCL’s MVP and selected to the Class 5A all-state first team by PA Sportswriters after averaging 20.2 ppg, was considered a bit of a coup for UConn coach Dan Hurley. Hurley reacted to the commitment by posting a video of the Rocky training montage ending at the Philadelphia Art Museum to his Twitter on Sunday night.
Prior that, Diggins made the news official with a video posted to his Instagram.
Diggins didn’t speak in the film, shot at an outdoor court in the Abbotsford section of Philadelphia and spliced with footage of his time at Wood but also an elementary schooler learning the game before revealing Diggins and plenty of family all decked out in UConn apparel.
Also graded a four-star recruit, Diggins chose the Huskies over his long and impressive list of suitors that included Villanova, Kansas, DePaul, St. Joseph’s, Virginia Tech and Florida. The smooth 6-foot-1 point guard is the first recruit in UConn’s 2021 class and has shown plenty of potential as a three-level scorer and facilitator in three seasons as a starter at Wood.
Diggins is the first domino to fall in the Vikings’ 2021 class with teammates and fellow seniors Jaylen Stinson, Daeshon Shepherd and Marcus Randolph all holding numerous Division I offers of their own. Wood forward Rob Jackson will also have a college choice coming up, but his will be for football, a sport he just started playing last year but already has double-digit Division I offers as an edge rusher.