City of Basketball Love

Kevin Callahan (@CP_KCallahan)
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Although with borderline combination guard size, Derek Simpson says he “consider[s] myself a point guard,”

He should. The 6-foot-3 New Jersey resident thinks like a point – on and off the court.

Simpson, who is entering his senior year at Lenape High School, committed to in-state Rutgers University in major part because of the Scarlet Knights’ assistant coaches.

“He's surrounded himself with point guards on his staff,” Simpson said about RU head coach Steve Pikiell. “That was a big thing for me.

“Brandin Knight was a point guard at Pitt, TJ Thompson was the point guard at George Washington and Karl Hobbs was a point guard at Connecticut. So, that was definitely a big factor.”

Understandably, Simpson welcomes these three voices in his two ears, even if his head spins.

Knight, a Pitt point guard from 1999-2003, directed the Panthers to consecutive Big East regular season titles (2001-02 and 2002-03), two NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances (2002 and 2003), and the program’s first Big East Tournament title (2003) during an 89-40 (.690) four-year record.

Thompson, the Director of Basketball Administration, was a four-year starter and two-time all-conference selection at George Washington where Hobbs was his head coach. He helped the Colonials seize their first Atlantic 10 Conference tournament title as a senior team captain in 2004-05 with 22 wins, a top 20 ranking and an automatic NCAA bid. Thompson still holds the GW career record for three pointers with 229, while ranking fifth in assists (484) and eighth in steals (158).

Hobbs, a four-year starting point guard and All-Big East selection as a senior at UConn (1980-84), paced the Huskies in assists all four years and ranks sixth all-time with 534.

The RU assistants certainly are esteemed names. So is current Rutgers point guard Geo Baker.

“When we first talked, [Pikiell] told me that I reminded him of Geo Baker and he said that I can be like him one day,” Simpson said. “So I thought that was a great comparison because Geo has been doing so well.”

The 6-4 Baker has started 101 of the 117 games that the he has played at Rutgers, averaging 11.1 points, 3.3 assists, 2.8 rebounds and 1.3 steals. The three-time All-Big Ten selection ranks fifth all-time at Rutgers in assists (389), seventh in three-pointers (185), eighth in steals (147) and 18th in points (1,300).

With Baker and Ron Harper both returning after initially declaring for the NBA draft, Pikiell, who is entering his sixth-year as head coach on the banks of the Raritan River, said publicly that he expects this to be his best team at Rutgers.

This is music to the ears of the Scarlet Knights’ fan base, as two years ago Rutgers won 20 games in the truncated 2019-20 season and last year advanced to the second round of the NCAA tourney.

“I feel great going into a program knowing that they're on the rise,” Simpson said. “They could have made the NCAA tournament before COVID-19 hit that year and they made it last year and they're hoping to have a great season again this year.”

Last season, Simpson averaged 20.6 points, 4.9 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 2.1 steals for Lenape coach Matt Wolf.

“Ever since [Pikiell] first saw me play, he told me he was sold on my game,” Simpson said. “He knew my strengths and my weaknesses.”

Simpson, who made an official visit to the Big Ten school last week after taking an unofficial visit to Rutgers in late June, had 11 offers, mostly mid-majors.

He was recently offered from Arizona State and coach Bobby Hurley, the former St. Anthony’s star.

“When he offered me, it was like, ‘Oh, I kind of want to check the school out,’ but after talking to the coaches a little bit more, they had too many guards there,” Simpson said. “He has built up a great program, it wasn't going to be a great fit for me because I wouldn't be playing my freshman year most likely.

Simpson also visited Saint Joseph's, Old Dominion, Delaware and Bowling Green.

Another big factor for choosing to go north on the Jersey Turnpike was the Piscataway school is only a little more than an hour drive from his Mt. Laurel home.

When Simpson went away on a recruiting trip this summer, he realized he wanted to stay home.

“I went to Bowling Green and it was like, this is an hour flight and a nine-hour ride,” he said. “My dad (Ron) always said, ‘You know, I can always just go up the turnpike.

“My mom (Shirla), my dad, my grandma, they always come to all my games. So that was definitely a big factor.”

The Big Ten was also a big factor.

“Me and my dad always talked about it,” said Simpson, who is considering sports management or criminal justice as a major. “He said if you want to be challenged, you have to go to the Big Ten.”

Ron Simpson is in the Athletic Hall of Fame at Rider University, where his career scoring average (20.0) during the mid-1980’s is the highest among 1,000-point scorers.

The elder Simpson, who starred at Immaculate Conception High School in Montclair, N.J., where he is in the Hall of Fame, is the Founder/Chief Executive Officer of the South Jersey Titans, which he organized in 2015 after there years of being a co-founder of the Mid Jersey Mavericks in Mercer County.

“I've played in that organization since I was in fifth grade,” Derek Simpson said about the Titans.

Simpson, who committed on Sunday, joins Braeden Moore, a 6-8 forward from Tennessee, as Pikiell’s first two commits in the 2022 class.

“I viewed some of his highlights and he looked pretty good,” Simpson said. “He doesn't show a lot of emotion, looks like he's kind of like me in that sense, he just plays the game.”

Simpson also thinks the game, on and off the court.