INDIANAPOLIS — All-American package deals in recruiting are about as frequent as well officiated NCAA Tournament games.
They are rare — about as rare as a freshman duo like Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones.
“It is unique that it stays together,” said Duke assistant coach Jeff Capel, the twosome’s lead recruiter. “You hear about these things all the time, but they’re unique and their friendship and their bond is really unique. It’s real. It’s not something that is manufactured. It’s not something that is a copycat thing.
“I think you’ve been able to see it all year.”
Indeed, Duke is one win away from its fifth national championship largely because it was able to land the close friends and McDonald’s All-Americans last year, a major recruiting coup that has translated into a 34-4 season. While Okafor has dominated most of the headlines as the potential No. 1 pick in June’s NBA Draft, averaging 17.7 points and 9.0 rebounds, Jones has been a key contributor as the Blue Devils point guard, a heady 6-foot-1 floor general who doesn’t act like a freshman and led Duke with 5.8 assists per game.
Jones and Okafor first met way back in the third grade in the AAU Nationals in Orlando. But their relationship truly began six years later, when both were trying out for the USA Basketball juniors team.
“We just felt so much pressure, trying to make the team,” Okafor said. “We talked back and forth every day. We got really close.”
It was then the talk began in earnest, as a friendship sprouted. They were comfortable playing together, the slick point guard and the dominant big man and thought it would make the most sense to attend the same college. Okafor, from Chicago, and Jones, from Minnesota, didn’t play high school or AAU basketball together, but the Duke roommates became inseparable from a distance and have grown particularly close to each other this year.
“Jahlil is my brother, he’s my best friend,” Jones said. “This is what we envisioned and dreamed about doing, coming to college and playing for a national championship. It’s definitely something special and means a lot to both of us.”
This, however, wasn’t the usual package deal talk you hear in recruiting, the talk that quickly fades. Both families were on board. There would be conference calls and group text-messaging as the two prospects grew closer to a commitment.
“A bunch of people always say they want to be package deals. I think what was different about Tyus and I was the fact we had our families involved,” Okafor said. “My dad, his mother. His dad, my aunt. We’re all just one big family. I consider his mom my second mom. Likewise him with my dad.”
The key, everyone said, was communication, communication between Jones and Okafor, between their families and with the different schools recruiting them. People tried to create a wedge between them, Capel said, tried to come between such a strong duo, but they never wavered.
Monday night is likely the last game the two will play together. Okafor is almost certainly gone to the NBA. Even if Jones declares as well, a possibility, the odds are long they will wind up with the same organization.
But both said they haven’t discussed the finality of what has been a dream season, so many years in the making. It’s all about finishing on top.
“All we’ve thought about is winning our next game,” Jones said.