Kam Williams’ Recruiting Pitch: ‘This place is like none other’

Sometimes a school’s best recruiters are the players already on the team.

A coach is going to sell a school, but the players are going to tell it like it is.

Despite adding Kyle Young to the roster recently, recruiting has not gone well for new Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann. Ohio’s best players in the 2018 class are all turning to different schools, including 4-star shooting guard Dane Goodwin, who lives about a 20-minute jog from Ohio State’s campus.

Goodwin decommitted from Ohio State nearly three weeks ago and committed to Notre Dame on Wednesday. Darius Bazley, who is the state’s top player, was committed to the Buckeyes until he decommitted back in April. On Monday he committed to Syracuse.

Holtmann offered Jerome Hunter last month. Hunter is the No. 5 player in the state and a 4-star small forward from nearby Pickerington. Hunter has a final five of Ohio State, Indiana, Xavier, Michigan, and Pittsburgh. While OSU isn’t in desperation mode yet, at some point Holtmann needs one of Ohio’s best in 2018 to be the first to stay home.

On Thursday, Ohio State senior guard Kam Williams spoke with the media about a number of topics, including what he would tell prospective recruits who are thinking about OSU.

“I would just tell them if you come here you have a chance of imprinting your own legacy,” he said. “This is the start of a new era and you could be the first to win in that era, or to create something special in that era. If I’m a recruit and I hear that, that would be very appealing to me. To be the first Big Ten Champion under Coach Holtmann, the first National Champion under Coach Holtmann, that would be a tremendous accomplishment. So just hearing that, that would make me excited in itself.”

Williams put his name into the NBA Draft following this past season, but eventually pulled out in order to return to school. Part of the reason for returning falls right in line with his recruiting pitch.

“It’s very, very exciting,” he said of this fresh start with Holtmann. “To go out with a bang, on top, that would mean the world to me because I love it here. Obviously, we haven’t had the years we thought we might have had, but just being here is one of the greatest opportunities that you could ever ask for. That’s something that we try to instill in the recruits. You will never find another school like this. I don’t care where you go, you’re not going to find a school like this. That’s just what we try to tell anybody who visits here. This place is like none other.”