Ace Bailey #4 of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights celebrates a dunk against the Northwestern Wildcats (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Rutgers freshman Ace Bailey entered this basketball season with as much hype up as any individual player. Three months into the season, Bailey has been every bit as good as advertised, as he currently leads the Big Ten in scoring (10th nationally).
Kevin Durant is his best player comparison, and that makes perfect sense given that he models his game on the 15-time NBA All-Star and six-time All-NBA first team member.
One cannot make Durant comps lightly, as he's a former NBA MVP and two-time NBA champion, but Bailey is just as tall, and has just as wide a shooting range. However, you can also see elements of Paul George and Giannis Antetokounmpo (who Bailey worked out with this summer) in his game.
Most NBA mock drafts have the star freshman going #2 or #3 overall, with his Rutgers teammate Dylan Harper, and/or Duke big man Cooper Flagg the guy(s) usually slotted ahead of him.
Flagg is extremely special in his own right, and right now, he's the favorite to become the first overall pick. However, it's Bailey who might actually become the next NBA superstar from the 2025 draft class, because he has a very big personality that matches his larger than life game.
As we enter February, Bailey already has three 30+ point games, and 10 games of 20+ points. The most recent of which came in a 79-72 win at Northwestern this past week. At halftime, Bailey already had 24 points, having gone 9-10 from the field, 4-4 from 3-point range.
He was dominant in every sense of the word, finishing with 37 points, six rebounds and three blocks.
“That's basketball, there's nothing to it, you go out there, and you do what you need to do,” Bailey said to the media after putting on an absolute clinic in Evanston, IL. “I work hard, and I know what I can do.”
A Future Star
The Chattanooga, TN native seems to have his best games on the road, as scored 30 at Penn State and 39 at Indiana earlier this season. Clearly, he feeds off of going into hostile environments, where he can draw additional energy from the opposing home crowd's antagonizing.
On this specific evening, the theme was “Western Night” at Northwestern's Welsh-Ryan Arena. Cowboy hats abounded in the crowd, and Bailey got in on the fun.
After knocking down a corner three-ball, he celebrated with a gesture that looked like he was putting his six-shooter back in its holster.
Although, according to Bailey, it was not that scripted or planned.
“I don't know what I did,” he explained in an interview with RG. “Like I said, I just play with passion, and the emotions just came out.”
Bailey is a guy with a lot of different shots and moves in his repertoire, and all of them were on display this night. Beyond the three-point shooting, he can also back opponents down, and then hit 'em with the turnaround or the fadeaway.
In other situations, he can hurt opponents with a nice little baby hook shot.
He also rocked the rim on a couple of high-flying alley-oops. Asked what his “favorite shot” to take is, Bailey responded:
“Just get me the ball. I'm going to do what I need to do for us to be successful. Whatever Coach needs me to do, catch-and-shoot three ball, (go) off-the-dribble, I can do it.”
Northwestern Coach Chris Collins had a good game plan for how to try and defend Bailey, and in the second half, they were able to slow him down a little bit.
“If he gets going, he's really hard to stop because he's 6'10” and he can shoot over the top of you,” Collins said.
“We were trying to make him put the ball on the floor, that's where we were really disappointed.
“Now give him credit, he's really talented. Our guys haven't seen a guy at that size with that skill set. He's going to score no matter what, we just wanted him to shoot more twos and get him off the pull-up jumper.”
The main knock on Bailey, when evaluating his potential as an NBA player, is that he tends to fall in love with his jump shot. Collins, who wanted to try to force Bailey into taking a lot of long twos, instead of shooting threes or getting to the basket, was wowed by Bailey's strong work ethic.
Collins noted the blue-chip recruit/5-star frosh's ability to maintain motivation and focus, despite everyone telling him that he's the next big thing.
“He's an NBA player,” Collins continued. “He's got electric shooting range. He's a really tough shot maker too, can shoot with guys in his face, he's long. What I really like about him, too, is he plays hard. He's got a motor. For a young kid, especially one that has been hyped as much as he has, to play hard every night, he has an amazingly bright future.
Bailey presents a combination of rare physical and technical skills that make him a special player in the eyes of Collins.
“There's just not many guys at 6-10 with that skill set.”
Bailey's coach, Steve Pikiell, was impressed by what Bailey can consistently deliver on the defensive end:
“You guys talk about the points, I'll talk about the blocks.”
While defense is extremely important, offense is what sells tickets (and streaming subscriptions) and there is nothing more exciting than watching a guy who is “in the zone.”
We asked Bailey what was the moment that he realized he was on a heater.
“Once I hit the backboard three,” he answered. “I knew it was one of those nights.”
Paul M. Banks is a professional Content Creator whose career has seen bylines in numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Yahoo, MSN, FOX Sports and Sports Illustrated.
Banks has made scores of guest appearances on live radio and television, featuring regularly on NTD News, WGN-TV, CCTV, ESPN Radio, the History Channel, SiriusXM and CBS Sports Radio.
He is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank.net, which has been featured and linked in hundreds of leading media outlets all across the world.
He has also authored two books, one of which, "No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in Sports Media," became an assigned textbook in journalism courses at State University New York-Oneonta.
