Neumann Goretti’s Khaafiq Myers still navigating recruiting process

Neumann Goretti’s Khaafiq Myers has dealt with a few obstacles throughout his process of choosing a college basketball team.

After suffering a knee ligament injury during a session with NJ Scholars Elite, the 5-foot-10 guard planned on announcing his college commitment on June 27, his birthday. However, when he learned he would be cleared to play in Peach Jam, an AAU championship, Myers announced via Twitter that he would be pushing the date back.

Myers wanted to give himself an opportunity to attract more attention from college coaches after missing playing time at Philly Live, a high school basketball showcase, because of his knee injury.

“I didn’t really want to put that stress on me picking my school right before Peach Jam,“ Myers told City of Basketball Love over the phone last Tuesday.

Although Myers doesn’t have a definitive commitment date yet, he knows that it won’t be before the 2023-24 season. It most likely will be in January or February, he said.

The senior holds scholarship offers from Binghamton, La Salle, Drexel, St. Joseph’s, George Washington, North Carolina A&T, and the University of Massachusetts. Previous offers from Temple, NJIT, Wichita State, and North Texas came off the table when those programs made head coaching changes.

“It’s a great feeling. I definitely came a long way from when I first started,” Myers said. “I didn’t choose my college yet, but I know I’ll be more relaxed once I choose my college.”

Myers averaged 11.1 points, 4.4 assists, and 2.3 steals in 22 games for Neumann Goretti last season. He averaged 9.8 points, 1.8 assists, and 2.4 rebounds in five games at Peach Jam for the NJ Scholars, including a 23-point game against Drive Nation of Dallas, Texas, on 10-of-14 shooting. Myers has an idea of what he is looking for from a college program.

“A player’s coach who is focused on player development,” Myers said. “Say I [go] there, I pray to God it doesn’t happen, but I get hurt, or my time to be on the court just didn’t come yet, and I have to sit out two years. I want to know that the player development is going to have me ready when it is my time.

“A school that’s big on culture. I come from a great culture at Neumann Goretti. A great culture and great coaches, like it doesn’t matter whether it is the last person on the bench or the first person on the bench, they should always be rocking with you.”

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Neumann Goretti has invited college coaches to open gyms on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout September. Myers said staff from the Explorers and Minutemen stopped by, as well as Florida Gulf Coast, which has “hopped in the mix” for Myers. He most recently went on an official visit to North Carolina A&T on Sept. 10.

“I learned more about the culture there and just the staff,” Myers said about his visit. “It’s like a Philly staff, people that are closer to this area with East Coast ties. It was really good [to] learn about the culture [and] just learn about the school.”

NC A&T head coach Monté Ross, who formerly served as an associate head coach at Temple, recruited Myers while with the Owls.

“In June when I posted that I was pushing my commitment date back, [Ross] just hit me up saying, ‘I want you to come visit and everything before you do anything,’” Myers said. “We started talking in June because I knew he had to make sure he got his roster straight for this year, so I knew [the visit] was going to come eventually. I wasn’t worried about it at that moment.”

It also comforted Myers that the rest of the coaching staff was new at NC A&T. Ross added associate head coach Jeff Rafferty and assistant coaches Dorian Long and Ricky Moore to the staff at the end of June.

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The next visit he plans to take is to UMass sometime in the next couple of weeks.

He’ll take the next few months to sort through his college options while helping Neumann Goretti win when the season starts. The Saints are coming off runner-up finishes in the Catholic League and PIAA Class 4A title games.

“I’m not really stressing over it,” Myers said. “It’s definitely a little hard because there are a lot of coaches recruiting me, and I’ve got a great relationship with them. It’s definitely hard telling a coach or anybody that’s a part of that staff that you are going to have to go in a different direction. I think that’s the hardest part about this recruitment thing.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between The Inquirer and City of Basketball Love, a nonprofit news organization that covers high school and college basketball in the Philadelphia area while also helping mentor the next generation of sportswriters. This collaboration will help boost coverage of the city’s vibrant amateur basketball scene, from the high school ranks up through the Big 5 and beyond.