Ace Bailey winced with each step he took, a slight limp evident as he made his way down the court at Blake Arena. In the middle of his fifth game across three states in a seven-day span, the tendinitis in his right knee that’s been following him all year was flaring up once again.
The five-star forward and highest-ranked signee in Rutgers basketball history powered through the pain of his jumper’s knee. There were dozens of NBA personnel and hundreds of fans Bailey did not want to disappoint. More importantly, his McEachern team needed his help to come back from an 18-point deficit against California prep school Harvard-Westlake on this Monday morning matchup at HoopHall.
“We came out lazy and tired,” Bailey said. “Once they got that 18-point lead, I got into [my teammate’s] ass. I told them, we got to pick this up. I don’t care, no excuses. In the league, they play multiple games in a row, so if y’all want to get to the next level, y’all need to suck this [stuff] up.”
With Bailey leading the charge, the Indians stormed back to force overtime. The star forward made fewer pull-up threes and turnaround jumpers than usual, but he finished tough plays at the rim, created for teammates in transition and made some big defensive plays. In the end, it was not enough as McEachern fell by a point in the extra period, but Bailey was proud of his team for its effort.
“We fought our ass off,” Bailey said. “I like that. We didn’t give up at all.”
In one of the least impressive performances of his standout senior year, Bailey finished with 23 points on 10-of-24 shooting, 14 rebounds, four turnovers, three blocks, one steal, one assist. On a day he struggled from three (1-of-7) and battled through discomfort, he still finished with a double-double and was one of the best players on the floor.
That’s why the recent buzz in recruiting circles points to Bailey being in contention for the top spot in the 2024 class.
National analysts from 247Sports and Rivals, who travel the country to watch top prospects throughout the year, floated the idea multiple times in the past month. They rave about his rapid rate of improvement in the past 12 months.
They’ve watched him drop 40 points against a fellow five-star at his future home court. They saw him become the seventh-highest scorer in a single tournament in the history of the prestigious City of Palms Classic. They saw his game-winning jumper in the third-place game of the historic Bass Pro Shops Tournament of Champions last week, capping off a 31-point, 16-rebound outing.
They’ve watched him develop what one NBA scout called a “pro-ready game” and seen enough growth to believe he can challenge Cooper Flagg for the title of the best player in the 2024 class.
The Duke commit has held that position in the 247Sports Composite rankings from the moment he reclassified to the 2024 class this summer, overtaking Rutgers commit Dylan Harper in the process. The duo has held their positions firmly since then, with Bailey standing at No. 3 in the rankings.
As the best player on the best high school team in the country, Flagg has a good chance of finishing there. In Sunday night’s marquee matchup at HoopHall, Flagg had 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting, 10 rebounds and five blocks as Montverde defeated star-studded Prolific Prep, which featured the top players in the 2025 (AJ Dybantsa) and 2026 (Tyran Stokes) classes. The standing-room-only crowd at Blake Arena included dozens of NBA scouts and executives, who watched a high-level game featured a handful of likely future NBA lottery picks.
Second-ranked Harper and his Don Bosco Prep team played the game prior, with the Rutgers commit scoring 22 points in the loss to Archbishop Stepinac. A day later, most of the NBA personnel — including Boston Celtics president Brad Stevens — returned to watch Bailey.
After his 23-point, 14-rebound double-double, ESPN draft analyst Jonathan Givony called him the “potential No. 1 pick” in the 2025 NBA Draft, raving about the “spectacular flashes of talent as a creator, passer, finisher, defender and shot-maker inside the arc” he showed. Yahoo! analyst Krysten Peek called him the “potential top pick” in the draft prior to the contest, tracking with early mock draft projections which peg Bailey as the No. 2 pick behind Flagg.
Granted anonymity so he could speak freely about future prospects, an NBA scout who has watched both players frequently believes the current order is correct, but the gap between them is not sizable. He grouped Bailey with Flagg and Dybantsa as prospects with a pro-style skillset.
“You can definitely see Bailey being at that same level,” the scout told NJ Advance Media. “He does everything on the floor you would want from a basketball player. He has superstar ability. He’s close. Right now, if I had to give an edge to somebody, I would give it to Cooper, but I don’t think Ace is very far behind.”
Tremayne Anchrum, the McEachern head coach who sees Bailey play more frequently than anybody, has no doubt.
“I don’t care about the numbers, I don’t know about the rankings: I just know I got the best player in the country,” he told NJ Advance Media.
For his part, Bailey said he does not care about the rankings, which “don’t matter.” He remains focused on leading his team through the back half of its schedule, which remains compact but features significantly less travel. After going to Florida, Missouri, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Bailey and McEachern are pegged to stay in Georgia for the foreseeable future.
But no matter where Bailey goes, his future follows him. Eager Rutgers fans, NBA scouts and recruiting analysts watch him closely, holding expectations that Anchrum and one scout called “unfair” for a 17-year-old. But the coach and his pupil understand the level of scrutiny is part of the process; Bailey notes that it’s “going to be like that from here on out.”
All Bailey can do is follow his usual routine: take care of his body, build a relationship with the rest of the star-studded Rutgers recruiting class he is a part of — he said the group has “started our Knighthood” with constant contact — and block out the noise. No matter how many people are watching, how high the expectations on him are and where he is viewed by the recruiting industrial complex, he said he does not feel any pressure to perform.
“I just black out and play basketball,” Bailey said. “Block it out: just you, the person in front of you and the rim.”
Story by Brian Fonseca, nj.com