Photo courtesy of Position Sports/Nike/Jon Lopez
By David Cordova
In the senior class of 2018, there have been many standouts around the country and on the AAU circuit. This year, a couple of players have reclassified up a year, which means skipping their junior year to become a senior year or in some cases, their senior year so that they could enter the college ranks a year early.
But then there are the kids who have stayed true and have done the whole four-year route and will get to finish out their high school careers with appearances in games such as the McDonald’s All-American Game or the Jordan Brand Classic.
Another fact for this year’s high school class is that many of the top ten players in the class stand over 6-foot-4 and possess the skills of a point guard even though they play the wing or the center and/or power forward positions. Those attributes make the game positionless, meaning that a player can’t be defined by one position anymore, he can only be defined by his level of skill.
One player that contains these versatile skills is Cameron Reddish, who is rated the No. 3 prospect nationally in this year’s senior class. The 6-foot-8 forward has been one of the best players in the country since his freshman year and has consistent from then on.
“I like that challenge, I push myself every day to do something more and to get better. I like challenging myself to get better.” said Reddish.
The native of Norristown, Pennsylvania inherited skills from his father, Robert Reddish, who played two years of Division I basketball at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia from 1989 to 1991. “My dad put the ball in my hands when I was real young, I mean a lot of work was put in,” says the younger Reddish.
On growing up in Norristown, a town that is six miles away from Philadelphia, which is a major basketball hotbed: “Uh, it’s nice, I live in the suburbs of Norristown, it’s cool, I don’t really be around that much, but I love it.”
Since he started high school, Reddish has been playing his high school hoops away from home, starting out at the Haverford School in Haverford, Pennsylvania as a freshman, where he led the team to a 17-11 record and a third-place finish in the Inter-Academic League and advanced to the PSIAA state semifinals.
As a sophomore, he ended up transferring to the Westtown School in Westtown, Pennsylvania, where he made the All-League first team. In these last two seasons with the Moose, Reddish, along with players such as Arizona freshman Brandon Randolph and recent McDonald’s All-American Mohamed Bamba, who is now at Texas, made Westtown a very formidable squad, leading them to a 60-7 record and two straight PSIAA titles.
“I actually like the school,” says Reddish of Westtown, “It’s cool, I dorm there, I’m always with my friends, I work out all the time. Overall, it’s fun.”
When asked about how his junior season went, he replied, “I feel like I did okay, I felt like I could’ve did better. We were real talented. We did real well as a team, but individually I felt I could’ve did better.”
Okay is an understatement, considering that he made the Pennsylvania Sportswriters’ All-Class 3A All-State first team, the USA Today All-Pennsylvania second team and honorable mention for the Naismith All-American list. But rather than boast about his accomplishments, Reddish remains modest and humble.
When asked about being ranked a top-five prospect in his class, he replied, “I mean, it’s cool, it’s an honor and a blessing honestly, I mean, I’m going to continue to work hard everyday, trying to get better, trying to get that No. 1 spot.”
After the high school season, he then went and dominated on the prestigious Nike EYBL circuit with Team Final, a program which has players from Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. With Final, Reddish led all scorers with 22.6 points per game and also led with 7.8 rebounds and three assists per game.
Although they had a dismal 7-9 record, Team Final was fortunate to play in the Nike Peach Jam play-in game against Nike Team Florida. Although Final was eliminated, Reddish went out with a bang in that game, scoring a game-high 44 points and added five rebounds and five assists. When asked about his performance, he replied, “I mean, it was just one of them days. I was making a lot of shots, my coach and my teammates and my parents pushed me to keep going, so I was trying to get the win, but I was also trying to finish out strong.”
With his last summer complete, all that was left for Reddish to do, was to commit to a school. And that took place on September 1st, a day in which he celebrated his 18th birthday, which also made the moment even sweeter. On that day, he committed to perennial powerhouse, Duke University, in which he will be playing for Hall of Fame coach, Mike Krzyzewski.
Now that he’s a senior with his scholarship in the bag, he now wants to achieve all his goals that he has set out from Day One. “I’m trying to win everything, get better as a player, get better as a leader as well, I want to get better as a leader, so I can be ready at the next level.”
And when asked what he will bring to Duke, he replied, “I mean, I’ll bring everything to a college, I do everything, shoot, pass, rebound, whatever you need to do to win, I mean, go in there with a positive attitude, go in there with a good work ethic, I’m going to go in there and do what I do.”
Highlights of Cameron Reddish:
Courtesy of Hoop Diamonds.
Courtesy of Hoop Major Media.
Courtesy of Big Star Raw Sports Media.
Courtesy of NextUp Recruits.
Courtesy of Make Playz.
Courtesy of BallisLife.
Courtesy of 8Eye Media.
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