Houston Hoops standout, Rasheed Sulaimon - BDN Photo, Mark Watson
In February, junior 6’3″ Rasheed Sulaimon became the second commitment for Duke in the 2012 class. The Houston-area product helped lead his Strake Jesuit squad to a 26-4 record, before getting upset by one point to Lamar in the second round of the Texas playoffs. For the season, the high-scoring guard with an improving defensive reputation averaged over twenty-one points, five rebounds, three assists, and two steals for the Crusaders.
An articulate, personable and religious young man, Sulaimon has tried to help recruit Shabazz Muhammad and Tony Parker to the Blue Devils and is friendly with Rodney Purvis. Last year, his young Houston Hoops team struggled in Nike’s inaugural EYBL . This year, Sulaimon, has helped lead his Houston Hoops squad to a 9-1 record and averaged thirteen points through the first ten games played at Boo Williams and in Dallas.
Recently, he spoke with Blue Devil Nation.
How do you feel you’ve played so far?
I feel I’ve played pretty well. We’ve had some pretty close games, but our team has persevered. We won and 3-1 right now here, so, overall, it’s been a good weekend.
You guys went undefeated at Boo Williams.
Yeah, yeah.
Can you compare this with last year where you struggled a bit last year because you guys were so young?
You know, last year, we were young. We were coming into something that was new and, you know, we kind of struggled. We kind of relied on our talent. We didn’t play as a team and our work kind of suffered because of that. This year, we knew what we were going into it, prepared better, playing like a team. We’re playing great defense and the record is showing it.
Did the experience of being thrown into the fire, so to speak, pay a lot of dividends for you this year?
Yeah, I think so. I think it helped us grow and mature faster than even we wanted to. So, you know, putting us in that situation made us grow a lot faster.
Rasheed talks about recruiting for Duke, his improved defense and much more in the rest of this interview. This is the fouth interview in four days, so join BDN Premium for full site access and then take a look at what Nerlens Noel, Juilus Randle and Theo Pinson had to say. Then talk about the latest on the BDN Premium message board. Check out BDN Premium, you’ll be glad you did! We dare to compare our Duke-centric experience with any other service.
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