Newman hails from Jackson, Mississippi and attended the same high school (Callaway) as football wide receiver Dayall Harris, who began his career at Mississippi and transferred to UM this summer from junior college. In a tweet congratulating him for the move, Newman called Harris “kinfolk.”
Harris and Newman won basketball state titles together in 2012 and 2013. Newman, a McDonald’s All-American who has his No. 14 Callaway jersey retired, won two more after Harris graduated.
If Newman commits to UM, he would be the fourth top-50 player to pledge to Jim Larranaga this year, joining fellow five-star recruits Bruce Brown (No. 26 in ESPN’s final 2016 ratings) and Dewan Huell (No. 28) and top-50 recruit Lykes (No. 46 in 2017).
As this story lays out, such recruiting success is new for the Hurricanes, who signed just two five-star recruits (according to Scout’s rankings) in the near-decade before Larranaga arrived in 2011.