Huskies sign nation’s No. 2-ranked men’s basketball recruiting class

SEATTLE — The Washington Huskies men’s basketball team signed one of the nation’s most highly regarded recruiting classes on Wednesday.

It includes five players. The headliner is five-star, 6-foot-9 Nathan Hale High School forward Michael Porter Jr., the son of UW assistant coach Michael Porter Sr.

Guards Jaylen Nowell and Daejon Davis, a pair of four-star recruits from Garfield High School, also will stay home to play their college ball for the Huskies.

Blake Harris, a point guard from Raleigh, North Carolina, signed his letter Wednesday, as did 6-foot-9 forward Mamoudou Diarra, a Mali native who plays for St. Louis Christian Academy.

“This is a group that will complement the rest of our team and fill needs that we are missing while reinforcing other positions,” UW coach Lorenzo Romar said in a statement. “This class will join a talented team with an extensive amount of collegiate playing experience and will give us as complete of a roster that we’ve had in the 15 years that we’ve been here. It also gives us three consecutive years of high-level recruiting, which was much needed due to the fact that we had to start over in terms of filling our roster. … This gives us an extremely solid foundation to move forward and continue to build our program.”

Porter is considered a consensus top-five recruit in the 2017 class, and is projected as a first-round pick in the 2017 NBA draft. Romar hired his father, a longtime friend, as an assistant coach in May, and the younger Porter committed to the Huskies in July.

The family has a younger son, Jontay Porter, who is committed to UW in the 2018 class. Jontay will play for Nathan Hale this season.

Davis, who is 6-3 and considered by Scout.com to be the No. 45 player in his class, announced this week that he would sign with UW after committing to the Huskies in August 2015, then decommitting in April. He ultimately chose the Huskies over Oregon, Gonzaga and Stanford.

Nowell, who is 6-4, lists offers from Oregon, Stanford and California. Scout.com considers him the No. 83 overall recruit in the 2017 class. Harris, who is 6-3, lists offers from several ACC and SEC schools and is considered a three-star recruit by Scout.com and a four-star recruit by ESPN.

Scout.com ranks the Huskies’ class No. 3 in the country, behind only Arizona and Auburn. ESPN ranks it No. 2.

This is the second consecutive year in which UW has signed one of the nation’s most coveted players. Markelle Fultz, a freshman point guard for the Huskies, was considered the best guard in the final rankings of the 2016 class. And UW’s 2015 class, which included first-round NBA draft picks Marquese Chriss and Dejounte Murray, was ranked No. 7 nationally.