I would say 80 percent of the time the day a kid (who I cover, not ALL kids in the country) is announcing I will KNOW where he is going. Probably another 10 percent I can narrow it down to two while being pretty sure it is school A and not school B, 4 percent of the time it is 2-3 schools and I don't know, 1 percent of the time it is Zion Williamson where I had no freaking clue.
Since we are having B-Snow story time, here is another one that is classic for me. I covered JaKarr Sampson (who ended up playing in the NBA) all through high school. The kid was my dude. He always answered the phone, we were tight. The guy advising him, an AAU coach, always told me what was up and what was happening. Also he was at Brewster Academy, where his coach Jason Smith was a close friend.
JaKarr initially committed to St. John's out of high school but didn't qualify. So at Brewster he re-opened his recruitment and both Kansas and Providence put in a ton of time, but St. John's was never out of it. From talking to JaKarr/AAU coach/HS coach I had figured the kid liked Kansas the best. In fact it was pretty clear to me that the order was Kansas, Providence, and then St. John's.
So I am at a Butler basketball game and the AAU coach texts me, JaKarr is announcing his commitment at 9 tonight, I'll have him call you beforehand so you have your story ready. This is about 7 pm, so I rush home from the Butler game (I live 10 minutes from campus) and begin writing my stories about him committing to Kansas.
So JaKarr calls me about 8:40 as he said he would, and told me he was committing to St. John's. I almost fell out of my chair and dropped the phone. I was stunned. Here is a kid who I had surrounded, and as it turns out I was wrong the whole time.
Now by 9 my story on JaKarr to St. John's was written, and no one would have known I was totally wrong for the preceding 48 hours, so in theory at least I did KNOW before the kid announced, but that one is still one of the biggest shockers to me I have had in my career.