Pac-12 Basketball: Stanford Looks Like a Title Contender After Landing Top-10 Prospect

Suddenly Stanford looks like a contender for the 2021 Pac-12 basketball title.

Stanford pulled off a major recruiting coup on Sunday, when forward Ziaire Williams, a top-10 prospect from Chatsworth, Calif., committed to the Cardinal.

Williams is rated the nation’s No. 5 prospect by 247Sports, No. 7 by ESPN, and No. 13 by rivals.com.

Williams picked Stanford over a final group that included Arizona, USC, North Carolina and UCLA.

Williams joins a 2020 Stanford class that includes Noah Taitz, who is ranked as the 93rd-best prospect in the class by ESPN.

Those two are expected to contribute immediately to a Cardinal squad that might include every key player from last season’s team, which went 20-12 overall and 9-9 in the Pac-12 and had a chance to earn a berth in the NCAA tournament.

The one question mark is freshman point guard Tyrell Terry, who entered his name in the NBA draft earlier this month. But there is a decent chance that he will withdraw his name from the draft and return to Stanford for his sophomore season.

(In the video above, Stanford coach Jerod Haase talks about Cal following the Cardinal's loss to the Bears in Berkeley this past season.)

Williams is considered Stanford’s top recruit in more than a decade. He took an official visit to USC last summer and had trips to North Carolina and Arizona later.

Stanford has been in the picture for a long time, though. Williams took an unofficial visit to Stanford in 2017 as a sophomore.

Williams played on a tremendously talented team at Sierra Canyon High School. Bronny James (LeBron James’ 15-year-old son) and B.J. Boston (nation’s No. 6 prospect, according to ESPN) also played for Sierra Canyon.

Williams is already considered a top NBA prospect. He is pegged as the No. 8 overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft by NBAdraft.net, while Bleacher Report suggests he might go even higher, making him the sixth-best prospect in the 2021 draft.

Williams helped the USA Basketball squad win the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup.