Why touted recruit Donovan Williams committed to K-State ... and ended up at OSU
Informing Kansas State basketball coach Bruce Weber that he intended to play for Oklahoma State instead of the Wildcats was one of the hardest things that heralded recruit Donovan Williams has ever done.
Why?
He was technically committed to K-State when he delivered the bad news by phone on Monday.
Williams never made it public, but he silently pledged his basketball services to the Wildcats late last week and intended to announce his decision to the world Monday with a video post on social media. That was the plan all weekend. But he changed his mind somewhere along the way and flipped to the Cowboys four days after he pledged to wear purple as a college player.
He is happy with his final decision and he is thrilled to play with Cade Cunningham, the nation’s top-rated incoming recruit, next season at Oklahoma State.
Still, that phone call to Weber wasn’t fun.
“It was very tough, because I’m a guy who doesn’t like to go back on his word,” Williams said in a phone interview. “I don’t like it when people do that to me. But, at the same time, it’s a business. They are going to be OK. These guys are millionaires. Losing me won’t be that big of a deal.”
“I had to look at it from a business standpoint, because there were a lot of schools that told me they didn’t want me anymore. I don’t see why it should be that big of a deal for me to call a school and tell them that I don’t want to go there anymore. This is just what is best for me. It’s nothing that they did or didn’t do. I just wanted to go to Oklahoma State.”
Williams, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Lincoln, Neb., and one of the nation’s top remaining unsigned prospects, was also once committed to Nebraska before re-opening his recruitment after the Cornhuskers switched coaches from Tim Miles to Fred Hoiberg.
He felt better about his decision to play for K-State when he made it last week. But he began to rethink that choice after a few days.
When he went to bed Sunday night, he said, he was questioning himself. When he woke up Monday morning he told himself, “Man, I have got to get this done” with Oklahoma State.
“When I told Kansas State I wanted to go there it was an emotional decision, just kind of off impulse,” Williams said. “I didn’t clear it with my family or with my mentors and other people close to me. That is what I messed up last time with Nebraska when I committed to them off of impulse. I was just feeling good.”
“I took a day off and slept on it. Then I did a lot of deep thinking. There were a lot more pros to going to Oklahoma state than there were going to Kansas State. That’s what it came down to. I wrote everything down and studied stuff. I looked at the rosters, the coaching staffs, everything. I just feel like this is the best place for me.”
His decision to spurn K-State for a Big 12 rival leaves the Wildcats’ highest-rated recruiting class of the Weber era incomplete.
They may have to scramble to fill their final scholarship need of the 2020 recruiting cycle.
Landing Williams would have gone down as a big recruiting victory for Weber, as the K-State basketball coach treated Williams like the No. 1 prospect on his wish list throughout the winter and spring. He made several trips to Lincoln to watch the bucket-getter play in person last season, occasionally even when the Wildcats played on the same day.
K-State prioritized Williams because he possesses a talent it will need lots of next season — the ability to score.
With eight players departing the K-State basketball roster this offseason, the Wildcats only return 39.6 points from last year’s team. They lost their top three scorers and need new bucket-getters to replace them. Williams could have fit that role perfectly — he averaged nearly 30 points as a high school senior and knows how to both attack the basket and shoot from the perimeter.
But it wasn’t to be.
That will come as a disappointment to K-State fans, because the Wildcats appeared to be the clear favorites when Williams said he privately committed to his school of choice last week. Experts at all the recruiting websites nearly unanimously picked him to end up in purple.
K-State’s No. 2 recruiting target, Andersson Garcia, committed to Mississippi State Friday. Some took that as a sign that Williams was locked into Manhattan.
But momentum began to build for the Cowboys after top 50 recruit J.T. Thor spurned Oklahoma State for Auburn over the weekend. Without Thor, OSU coach Mike Boynton placed a new priority on Williams and flipped him with a late recruiting push.
Let the record continue to show that recruiting is never over until it’s over.
Donovan’s pledge to Oklahoma State bumped the Cowboys’ incoming recruiting class all the way up to No. 4 nationally, per Rivals. The opportunity to join that many other talented freshmen was too much for Williams to pass up.
He knows he disappointed K-State fans. But he hopes there are no hard feelings with Weber or his players.
“From my end, there is no bad blood at all,” Williams said. “It’s not like I reached out to people and they told me not go there. I am just doing what I think is best for me. I respect Coach Weber. I think he is a great guy. He came to a lot of my games when he didn’t have to. This is just a business. Recruiting is a business. He understands that, and he has been through it before.”
Williams received scholarships from K-State, Oklahoma State and Texas. But he also heard from Kansas, Texas A&M, Georgia, Villanova and a handful of other prominent schools.
It may be personal for him when he faces some of the teams that passed on his services.
“I look forward to playing a team like Kansas,” Williams said. “They had a chance and they overlooked me. I just couldn’t get to Villanova. Their head coach called and said, ‘I can’t offer you because I haven’t seen you play in person before.’ I can accept that. But some schools passed on me, period. I am going to be excited to play against them next year, for sure.”
In the end, it all came down to K-State and Oklahoma State.
For a few days, he was going to be a Wildcat. But he ended up a Cowboy.
“Playing with the No. 1 player in the country for a couple years will be awesome,” Williams said. “The coach they have, I love that dude. He is probably the most truthful guy I know. I am really looking forward to playing for him.”
It is unclear who Weber will target now on the recruiting trail. But it seems like junior-college big man Carlton Linguard could become a priority. The 6-foot-11 center boasts 12 scholarships, including offers from K-State, TCU, Texas A&M and Southern California.
Or maybe he will look for a graduate transfer to help out next season while seeking a long-term answer in 2021.
Either way, K-State still boasts a consensus top 25 recruiting class that Rivals ranks 14th nationally.
The Wildcats currently are set to welcome three different four-star recruits (Davion Bradford, Selton Miguel and Nijel Pack) next season, in addition to a pair of three-star prospects (Luke Kasubke and Seryee Lewis), as well as junior-college transfer Rudi Williams and UTEP transfer Kaosi Ezeagu.
When Donovan Williams joined as the eighth member of this K-State recruiting class, it was briefly the largest of the Weber era.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 6:06 PM.