Carson McCorkle makes anticipated prep debut
To say Carson McCorkle was looking forward to his first game at Raleigh Broughton High is an understatement.
The freshman shooting guard practically has grown up in the gym, tagging along as his father coached girls basketball at the school. He’s been shooting baskets at Broughton High since the third grade, and that really picked up in earnest when he was a fifth-grader. He knows the cracks in the floor, the softness of the rims and the angles to shoot from.
McCorkle had been looking forward to Tuesday’s game against Southeast Raleigh as soon as the schedule came out. He was a little nervous, but started to settle down in the third quarter. He took what the defense gave him, showcased his outside jumper and finished shooting 6 of 10 from the field and 3 of 5 on three-pointers en route to 15 points in a 63-51 win.
“Broughton has great goals and I’ve been shooting here forever, so for me, it’s nothing new,” said McCorkle, 14. “Shooting is not a problem for me on this court.”
If McCorkle goes on to have as much predicted success as many assume, they can note his first basket came with 2:53 left in the first quarter. He first started earning recognition after averaging around 31 points per game as an eighth grader.
“Once I got into the flow, I was good,” said McCorkle, who ended up with No. 3 by circumstance, but will be known for his three-point shooting. “I was the last one to pick on the team a number because I’m a freshman, and No. 3 was there and I took it. I will stick with it.”
The 6-foot-2, 167-pounder is also the rare preps basketball player three high-major offers before playing a high school game. NC State, Iowa and Georgia Tech all offered him, and the hometown Wolfpack was especially important.
McCorkle is as big a fan of NC State as he is Broughton High. He has been attending games for years, and was happy to get offered and then be invited to Primetime With The Pack and the Georgia Southern at NC State season opener as a recruit.
NCSU assistant coach Butch Pierre watched him workout at 5:30 a.m. during the fall, and he felt good about what he showed. Head coach Mark Gottfried came a couple of days later, and he was offered by the Wolfpack on Oct. 6. Just like that, his recruiting profile changed.
“To get that offer, it’s definitely the biggest one I’ve gotten thus far,” McCorkle said. “I was a little surprised. Coach Pierre loved my workout, and then Coach Gottfried came that Thursday morning. That was the first time he’s watched me play.”
One of the reasons McCorkle grew up a NC State fan is his mom, who attended school there.
“I’ve been a State fan my whole life,” McCorkle said. “I’ve been going for 10 years. My grandfather was a math professor at NC State and my mom was in the cheerleading program. My dad played ball at Guilford College, and he moved down here.”
Broughton is steep with basketball tradition, and most recently point guard Devonte Graham and shooting guard Jerome Robinson have signed with Kansas and Boston College respectively. He also watched NC State’s Cameron Gottfried and Chris Brickhouse.
“They [Graham, Robinson] also both played in my AAU program [Garner Road] as well, so seeing how they worked, and watching them at practice gave me a good idea what a Division I athlete looks like,” McCorkle said.
Former Garner Road standout Terry Henderson, a fifth-year shooting guard for the Wolfpack, is one of the players McCorkle watches closely at PNC Arena games.
“He just does a lot on the offensive end, and is a spot-up shooter and can take it to the rack strong,” McCorkle said. “I’ve known him for the past couple of months. I got to meet him this summer. He’s just a good guy who plays hard.”
McCorkle has always attended the Holiday Invitational, whether sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline or HighSchoolOT.com at Broughton, and now gets three games himself in the newly named John Wall Holiday Invitational. The Thon Maker vs. Harry Giles matchup from 2014 is easily his favorite.
“That is going to be unbelievable,” McCorkle said. “I’ve grown up watching that tournament, getting here at 9 a.m. and staying until 10 p.m. at night. For me to be able to play in it now, will be a big deal.”
To prepare for the high school season, McCorkle attended the CP3 Rising Stars Camp last August at Forsyth Country Day in Lewisville, N.C. He then attended a USA Basketball mini-camp in early October, which allowed him to play against many of the top players in the country, both from his class of 2020, and some select seniors.
“I was really excited going into the CP3 Camp because I knew it was a big camp with a lot of competition,” McCorkle said. “Being able to get in there and play was fun. That was the first time I got big-time national attention like that.”
Stars seniors such as Collin Sexton [Alabama signee], Michael Porter [Washington] and Kevin Knox were some of the players he went against in Colorado Springs, Colo. Sexton was a teammate at times.
“When I get to that age, I’ll know where I’ll need to be at,” McCorkle said. “It’s not even just skill-wise, but communicating and playing hard. It’s about being a good leader and handling myself on and off the court.”
Stanford and Virginia are the latest to reach out, and he went to a Clemson football game and a Duke basketball event in recent weeks. Duke junior guard Grayson Allen is definitely one of his favorite players in college basketball.
“I love him,” McCorkle said. “Grayson Allen is somebody that I model my game after. He attacks the rim and shoots the ball.”
McCorkle knows he’ll be a regular at NC State games and recruiting events, but doesn’t know what the future holds on when he’d like to commit to a college. He’s going to keep an open mind about things and 13 colleges have come by Broughton.
“It’s something I think about, going early, because the recruiting process isn’t the funnest thing to go through,” McCorkle said. “For me, whenever the time is right. It could be my senior year or two weeks from now.”