Gill St. Bernard’s (Gladstone, N.J.) star Naasir Cunningham is widely regarded as the top sophomore in the country with everyone from Duke to North Carlina to Michigan to Kentucky, among many others, all giving chase. The 6’7” wing has backed up a dominant summer with a dominant high school season. Now, Cunningham has agreed to give Sports Illustrated exclusive access into his world by chronicling everything from intimate details about his recruitment to his everyday life in a blog.
What’s up world, this is Naas Cunningham coming at you with my blog for Sports Illustrated! It’s been a really fun season; we’ve had a lot of TV games on ESPN, and it’s been different, but it’s been a great experience.
The biggest thing it’s gotten me is more exposure and more recognition.
Like for example, Kevin Durant started following me about a week ago, which was pretty cool.
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I know people that know him and I may end up getting a chance to workout with him at some point, so we’ll see what happens.
It’s just cool to be in the position.
My team is playing well, just trying to get better with each game.
We started off rough and now we’re picking it up and playing as a team more. I still think we have shown that we can be a top 10 team in the country. All of the top teams that we’ve played against, we’ve held our own.
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It’s built our confidence and I think that’s really gonna help us going into the postseason.
I heard about the new State Champions Invitational, and I think it’s a great idea and something we’re all excited about. If we were able to play in that I know that we would step up and just be motivated to represent the state!
But we’re not looking ahead; my coach doesn’t have a state title yet, so we’re all locked in to getting that done for him and for ourselves. Knowing that we could potentially have the chance to play for even more after states is definitely another big motivator for us!
OK, so my recruitment has been really good too.
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My latest offers are from Georgia and Duke.
Then I’ve got schools like Seton Hall, North Carolina, Connecticut, Michigan, Illinois and a bunch of others staying in touch, so it’s been cool.
My coach or my dad tells me about all of it and I’m always excited when I hear that!
It just makes me want to go even harder!
I’ll be running with NY Renaissance again this summer in the Nike EYBL, so I’m excited about that. We all love the spring and summer circuit, but I can’t think about that right now.
I’m locked in to going after this state title.
School is going well for me.
I have all A’s and I like all of my teachers and classmates. It’s honestly the perfect situation for me here.
OK, so on the music side, I’ve been listening to a lot of underground stuff lately, but I usually listen to Lil Baby, Durk, Lil Uzi, Polo G and a couple other guys.
The Halloween movie with Michael Myers was the last movie I went to see, and I’d say that it was pretty solid.
OK guys, I’ve gotta get back to studying and working on my game, but thanks for checking in with me today and I’ll be sure to get another blog done soon.
Take care.
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