Trae Young’s father says 5-star 2017 PG is still undecided

photo by: John Young

Kansas basketball recruit Trae Young (11) weaves his way though traffic as he drives to the hoop during AAU competition Saturday afternoon at Lawrence Sports Pavilion.

College basketball recruiting can be a pretty cut-throat business, full of back-stabbing, trashing other schools and coaches and sticking one’s nose where it doesn’t always belong.

That’s why it was so cool to see the picture of Kansas coach Bill Self and Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger sitting together last night at a game in Norman, Oklahoma, where five-star target Trae Young put on yet another show and filled up the stat sheet.

Many recruiting analysts believe that Kansas and Oklahoma are the two finalists for Young, a 6-foot-2, 170-pound point guard who is ranked No. 14 by Rivals.com in the Class of 2017. So it would have been very easy for Self and Kruger to steer clear of one another and focus only on making sure they got what they needed out of the trip.

Instead, the two veteran Big 12 coaches, who have a ton of respect for one another, watched the game together. Get this: As someone pointed out on Twitter, you’ve got a native Oklahoman trying to convince Young to leave the Sooner State for Kansas and a native Kansan trying to tell Young to shun the Sunflower State to stay in Oklahoma. Recruiting in a nutshell right there.

Young’s recruitment has been one of the most closely watched by KU fans and the whole thing is now a little more than a week away from being over.

Young announced last week that he would reveal his decision at noon on Feb. 16, which means one week from tomorrow, at noon central, we’ll know whether all of that time and effort put into recruiting Young by Self, KU assistant Norm Roberts and the rest of the staff was worth it.

Until then, this is what we know today — Young remains truly undecided and is still trying to sort out which one of those choices is the best for him.

His father, former Texas Tech star Rayford Young, confirmed as much on KLWN’s Rock Chalk Sports Talk on Monday.

“He hasn’t made a decision yet,” Ray Young told Nick Schwerdt during a 15-minute radio interview. “That’s one thing I can tell you. He’s still praying about this thing every night…. I would be lying to you if I said that I’m not ready for this thing to be over with, but, at the same time, I’m kind of sad too because we really care for all these schools that have been putting in their time recruiting him. It’s gonna be a bittersweet day when we have to tell a couple of those schools no.”

Ray Young listed Oklahoma State in the mix, as well, but the Cowboys, at least to those who cover these things closely, appear to be a long shot at best.

Ray Young went on to explain just how difficult the entire process has been for Young, who appears to be weighing the decision of staying home and becoming the next great Sooners savior or joining the Jayhawks and competing for a national title on a stacked roster.

“Now it’s at the point where he just wants to make sure whatever school he goes to it’s a good fit for him and he’s gonna have the role that he deserves, that he should have,” Ray Young said. “Kids these days, they want to step on campus and have an impact from Day 1, especially a kid like Trae, one of the top two or three point guards in the nation, a McDonald’s All-American. So he wants to go play right away and make an impact and help the team win. I’ll be honest, one thing about Kansas is they’ve got Frank Mason playing the point and he’s a senior, that’s very intriguing to my son. Why wouldn’t it be intriguing to any senior in high school?”

While all of those factors, and so many more, have weighed heavily on Young’s mind during this whole process, Ray Young said Self’s style and the manner in which he has gone about recruiting Young have been refreshing and made things much easier to handle.

“It’s been a really, really tough decision,” Ray Young said. “But Coach Self’s been great. He doesn’t put any pressure on Trae, he just tells it like it is and tells him what his role’s gonna be and now it’s up to Trae.”

That last part seems to be a true indication of just how this process has gone down. Unlike some parents, who get overly involved and start to act and feel as if they are the ones being recruited, Ray Young, has left this decision in the hands of his son.

“My role is to try to let him make his own decision, but, at the same time, guide him in those decisions,” Ray Young said, noting that his experience in recruiting and playing in the Big 12 have provided good insight for his son. “Trae and I are really close and he’ll ask me questions every day about, ‘What do you think about this situation, what do you think if I did this, would this be the right thing to do?’ I think it’s great that we have that relationship but, at the same time, he’s not gonna be in our house forever.”