Buzz Williams adds Baraki Simmons to 2019-2020 Class

This doesn’t happen often, gang… but we just added our sixth player to the 2019-2020 Texas A&M Basketball class.

Bakari Simmons is a 6’7” left-handed jack-of-all-trades wingman, and he appears to be somewhat of a late bloomer. He didn’t exactly capture the hearts and minds of local staffs during the traditional recruiting cycle, but by all accounts he had an excellent post-graduate season (22-8-5) at Victory Rock Prep in Bradenton, Florida. He’s filled out athletically, he’s got NBA blood (son of 10-year NBA vet Bobby Simmons), and he appears to be a really solid get for a program that’s still trying to fill out a roster on the back end of the recruiting calendar.

Bakari will be an interesting case study on the potential benefits of recruiting away from the traditional cycle. The current system doesn’t provide many opportunities for late bloomers like Simmons, so I’m willing to bet he’ll have a chip on his shoulder. He’ll join the squad on campus almost immediately, as he has confirmed registration for the upcoming Summer II session.

Simmons joins a class that includes Cashius McNeilly [G], Quenton Jackson [G], Andre Gordon [G], Emanuel Miller [F], and Yavuz Gultekin [F].