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Notre Dame Basketball Recruiting: Did Ohio St. Just Cost The Irish Joe Girard III?

By Mychal Hunter

LAS VEGAS, NV - MARCH 10: Basketballs are shown in a ball rack before the championship game of the Western Athletic Conference basketball tournament between the New Mexico State Aggies and the Grand Canyon Lopesat the Orleans Arena on March 10, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - MARCH 10: Basketballs are shown in a ball rack before the championship game of the Western Athletic Conference basketball tournament between the New Mexico State Aggies and the Grand Canyon Lopesat the Orleans Arena on March 10, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images) /
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Notre Dame basketball’s road to signing the high scoring combo guard just got a bit more difficult.

Here at Slap the Sign, we basketball boys have been keeping tabs on three 2019 Notre Dame basketball recruits above all. Two supremely talented bigs — Isaiah Stewart and Tre Mitchell — and a high scoring New York guard who owns every record in the book in The Empire State, Joe Girard III.

Girard has been the topic of a few different pieces on Slap the Sign lately. Both Nathan Erbach and myself have written pieces on his recruitment in the past couple months.

Recently, Girard’s high school basketball coach said that while he (and the local community) would love for JG3 to attend Syracuse, his expectation was that it would come down to Michigan or Duke.

It is well known that Michigan coach John Beilein coached Girard’s father at Le Moyne in the early 1990s, but Michigan was also considered to be the front runner for Top 30 class of 2019 guard DJ Carton.

This is why you never take the crystal ball as gospel.

As you can see, on July 1, 2018, the crystal ball was 83 percent in favor of Michigan. On July 14, Carton committed to Ohio State. Michigan will presumably turn at least some of its attention to Girard to fill its guard need for 2019.

Obviously when it comes down to it, Notre Dame had/has a tough road to land the 6-1 sharpshooter. Michigan was always the biggest threat. Duke will more than likely fill its talent coffers with more high profile players (or promise JG3 the world and then simply recruit over him). Boston College has a coach in Jim Christian whose seat is fairly warm. Baylor and Penn State both feel like outliers, quite frankly.

Syracuse is a legit threat to land their in state prospect, but Girard’s own high school coach said they were running third at best, meaning JG may not feel a huge obligation to stay home. He did use his first official visit to go to Syracuse last month. That led to crystal ball prognosticators all switching their picks, but a commitment did not happen.

Next: McGlinchey Signs Huge Rookie Deal

Coach Brey brought in two very talented guards in 2018 in Dane Goodwin and Prentiss Hubb, but Girard is the type of scorer that you pursue until the recruitment ends. I would never count out Coach Brey and Notre Dame.

The next obstacle is getting one of the four remaining officials visits. Stay tuned…