From Wofford to the big time: BJ Mack turns basketball lemons into Power 5 lemonade
Friday afternoon, BJ Mack, one of the nation’s hottest college basketball transfers, walked into the gym at Holy Trinity Middle School near uptown Charlotte.
Mack, who turns 23 Tuesday, looked up at a conference championship banner he helped the school win and then glanced over at a basket on the far end of the court. A big grin creased his face.
That was where Mack — now 6-foot-8 and 250 pounds — got his first dunk.
“I was trying my whole eighth grade year,” he said, “and I would miss it or get a foul call, so this one game I got a rebound and went coast-to-coast. There was one poor little kid standing down there, and I’m like, ‘You’re not stopping me.’”
The young man moved out of the way, thankfully, and Mack dunked with one hand. As he recounted the story Friday, Mack’s smile told you this was a moment of confidence in his career.
Turns out he needed every ounce of it.
Mack’s father, Brian, talks about how proud he is of his son for sticking it out, for constantly finding ways to make lemonade out of the lemons BJ Mack’s basketball career kept trying to throw at him.
It’s how he went from playing fewer than eight minutes as a college freshman to having scholarship offers from more than 50 schools that hope to land him as a graduate transfer.
His final five is SEC heavy: LSU, Alabama, Iowa, South Carolina, Arkansas (the order he listed them in). Open social media on Mack’s phone and you’ll find a lot comments from fans from those schools, but particularly from two of his final five.
“The Gamecock fans and Arkansas fans are trying really, really hard,” Mack said, another big grin stretching ear to ear.
The journey from there to here
For a long time, Mack seemed like a can’t-miss prospect. He was 6-6 when he went to Charlotte Catholic and started as a ninth grader, helping Catholic to an improbable state championship in 2016.
The next season, he transferred to Charlotte Christian and helped build a state power. He committed to Virginia Tech as a sophomore in high school, but after a coaching change at the ACC school, Mack eventually enrolled at South Florida — after he left Charlotte Christian for national high school power Oak Hill in Virginia.
By then, there were questions about his size. Was he tall enough or fleet enough to play inside in big-time Division I basketball? Going to Oak Hill and playing with and against future major college players every night was supposed to help with that.
Until it didn’t.
In two seasons at Oak Hill, Mack averaged 4.6 and 5.3 points per game. He didn’t play nearly as much as he had hoped. The same thing happened in his first year at South Florida, where he played fewer than eight minutes per game and averaged 2.1 points.
“At first,” Mack said, “I felt like I didn’t know if this was going to work out for me. I felt like I couldn’t get over the hump, because something always seemed to happen. But when I transferred to Wofford, I was able to push through.”
During the 2020-21 season, Mack started five games and played in 21 at Wofford, averaging 6.8 points and 3.3 rebounds in nearly 18 minutes per game. The next season, he was named second-team all-conference and first-team NABC All-District. He led the team in scoring (16.5) and rebounding (6.1). He also shot nearly 45 percent from 3-point range.
Remember those lemons? They were all liquid now.
And as a senior last season, Mack started 32 games and was named first team all-conference and repeated on first team all-district. He averaged 16.6 points per game and led the Terriers in points, 3-pointers (52) and blocks. He was second in rebounds.
Because Wofford doesn’t have a graduate program, Mack knew he was going to put his name in the transfer portal. But he had a good feeling, by then, that he would be a hot commodity.
Not the only one
Mack was quickly listed among the nation’s top impact transfers when he got into the transfer portal, and he’s not the only player from the area with lots of suitors.
▪ Former Metrolina Christian star Stephen Clark transferred from The Citadel to South Carolina. Clark started three years at the Citadel and led the school in scoring (16.3), rebounding (6.5), assists (2.8) and blocks (1.8) last season.
▪ Former Combine Academy star Jayden Epps is transferring from Illinois. He was scheduled to visit N.C. State on Thursday, and Georgetown over the weekend. Epps averaged 9.5 points last season, fourth-highest on the team as a freshman.
▪ Former Cannon School star Jaden Bradley, a 2022 McDonald’s All-American, is transferring from Alabama. A 6-foot-3 guard who led Cannon to a state championship before transferring to IMG Academy, Bradley started 22 games for Alabama as a freshman last season. But he lost his starting job to Jahvon Quinerly and averaged 12 minutes over the final six games and averaged 6.4 points and 3.1 assists for the season.
▪ Former Hopewell star Brice Williams is transferring from Charlotte, where his father, Henry, is one of the school’s all-time best players. Brice Williams averaged a team-best 13.8 points and shot 39.7 percent from 3-point range while not being a regular starter. He’s already heard from ACC, SEC and Big 10 schools like N.C. State, Florida and Nebraska.
▪ Former North Mecklenburg star Jae’lyn Withers is leaving Louisville, where he averaged 6.9 points and 5.3 rebounds last season. He’s the sixth Cardinals player to enter the portal.
Mack is ahead of most of those players. He already has five visits set, beginning with LSU on Friday and finishing with Arkansas at the end on the month.
And he’s already got his decision day: May 4.
“You like the experience that BJ Mack brings,” said Jamie Shaw, national recruiting analyst for On3.Com, a national site that follows college football and basketball recruiting. “He’s won over 60 games in his collegiate career and averaged 16.5 points over his last two seasons at Wofford....Mack’s shooting touch is very attractive, knocking down 37.6 percent from three on 242 attempts over his last 64 games. Experience, size, and shooting are all very valuable.”
How will he decide?
Standing in his middle school gym, Mack thinks about how much has changed since he got his first in-game dunk.
“My goal, really, was just being able to get a D1 scholarship,” he said. “And now to see all of the hard work paying off is just amazing.”
Mack will graduate with a degree in sociology and anthropology in May. He plans to pursue a graduate degree in sports management at his next stop.
But where will that be?
“Coming out of his school, my recruitment was different,” he said. “Now I know what I’m looking for in a school and in a program and in a coaching staff. At first, it was just, ‘This is where I feel I can be the most comfortable at.’”
Mack said he’s paying attention to which coaching staff is being the most consistent — and the most consistent with having a plan for how he will be used.
“Everybody’s calling to tell you how good you are,” he said, “but some coaches are calling to tell you, ‘We really want you,’ and ‘We really need you,’ and like, here’s how you can come and be an impact player, and that they can see you in their style of play.”
It seems like so long ago when BJ Mack was questioning whether college basketball was going to work out for him. He’s now bound for a Power 5 program that plays on national TV every night, and he’s ready to prove that, as much as anybody in the transfer portal, that he can make an immediate impact on a team.
“They’ll see how I can be an impact player,” Mack said of his potential next school, “and be able to get them from this year, to getting in the (NCAA) Tournament or going from an Elite 8 or Sweet 16 and getting over the hump and trying to win a national championship.”
He smiles again, that confidence now on full blast.
“I’m ready.”
