KNOXVILLE -- Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl announced Thursday that Midway, Ga., native Jordan McRae has signed with the University of Tennessee and will play basketball for the Volunteers beginning with the 2010-11 season. A 6-foot-6, 180-pound shooting guard, McRae is a senior at Liberty County High School and plans to enroll at Tennessee next summer.
McRae signed his National Letter of Intent during a ceremony Wednesday morning at his school, where he is coached by Willie Graham.
“Jordan has been committed to UT for a couple years,” Pearl said. “His length, his athleticism and his ability to shoot the ball at a high level make him a real special prospect. His offense is ahead of his defense. And once he gets into our weight program and starts to strengthen his build, he will be even more of an impact player.”
As a junior last year at LCHS, McRae averaged 23 points per game and earned 2008-09 honorable mention All-State honors from both the Georgia Sports Writers Association and the Atlanta Journal Constitution while leading the Panthers to the round of 16 in the Class AAA state playoffs and a 20-6 overall record.
Scout.com and ESPN’s Scouts, Inc., both rank the rangy and explosive McRae as the sixth-best shooting guard in the class of 2010.
“Today was crazy and kind of overwhelming,” McRae said Wednesday. “It’s like all my hard work to this point has paid off. But at the same time, tomorrow it’s right back to work.
“I think coach Pearl is a great coach. I like playing with intensity, and at Tennessee, I’ll be playing for a coach who is just as intense as me. I like his system and the fast-break game. At UT, off the court, everybody is really close and it really feels like a family, and I I like that a lot.”
McRae is listed on the ESPNU Top-100 chart as the class of 2010’s 29th-best overall prospect. He also is rated by Rivals.com as a four-star prospect and the No. 42 overall prospect nationally.
This past summer, McRae helped guide Team USA 2010 to the championship at the “adidas Nations” tournament in Dallas.
Tennessee’s current roster already includes a pair of Georgia natives in sophomore guard Cameron Tatum (Lithonia) and freshman forward Kenny Hall (Stone Mountain).
(E-mail Stan Crawley at wscrawley@earthlink.net)