Any freshman playing his first college basketball game is likely to be slightly wide-eyed. Howard’s Blake Harper was no different, and he had the fortune (or curse, depending how you look at it) of making that collegiate debut at Kansas’s Allen Fieldhouse, one of the sport’s iconic venues.
Harper started for Howard, a near-miraculous tale on its own considering where he had been a few months before, but his first half was unremarkable. He cut backdoor for a reverse layup less than a minute in but missed it, the shot impacted by Kansas All-American Hunter Dickinson, then had another floater later in the half blocked by Dickinson. He entered the locker room scoreless, his team getting blown out 46–19.
Dickinson is nearly five years older than Harper, but the two share a connection from growing up in the talent-rich Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and even attending the same middle school. Coming out of halftime, the Jayhawks star gave an admittedly nervous Harper a few words of praise, encouraging him to shoot the ball and have confidence in himself. And shoot he did: Harper fired away in the second half and scored 16 points, drilling corner threes and even finishing a tough and-one bucket over the outstretched arms of Dickinson.
That type of performance from a freshman, for the vast majority of college basketball’s history, would have been a thrilling sight for a head coach. But while there was no doubting Howard coach Kenny Blakeney was happy about his youngster’s star showing, it was impossible for next year not to creep into his head, too. In an era when mid-major programs like Howard regularly see their rosters raided by bigger programs, a big showing from Harper against what was then the No. 1 team in the country was guaranteed to raise eyebrows.
“With the climate what it is and he goes for the numbers he had there, you start to go, ‘Whoa,’ ” Blakeney says. “That thought [Harper transferring] comes in your head.”
The murmurs started that night and have crescendoed to a roar as Harper’s star has grown over the last four months, emerging as one of the top freshmen in the country. Where will Blake be next season? To the average onlooker (and the many interested coaches who’ve reached out) the answer is obvious: anywhere but Howard. Such is the current culture of college basketball: chase the highest level, the biggest check … and realistically, Howard can’t provide either. Still, Harper leaving Howard when the transfer portal opens in late March isn’t a foregone conclusion. Over the last two months, Harper and Howard gave Sports Illustrated an inside look at life as one of the most tampered-with players in college basketball … and the all-out effort to keep one of the brightest young players in the sport at the place that helped him unlock his talents.
“He has a chance to position himself as one of the greatest men to ever walk on the campus of Howard University,” Blakeney says.
Had you told Blake Harper this time last year he’d need a second business-only phone, he says he would have laughed at you. Stardom was something of a foreign concept for a player who had happily been a role player on his high school team. Harper remembers averaging about six points and four rebounds per game at Gonzaga College High School, serving as a point forward and connector on a team with multiple future high-major recruits.
“If I had five points, I thought I played well,” Harper recalls with a smile.
The limited high school stats hadn’t scared off Howard, which had a longstanding relationship with the Harper family. Harper’s father, Byron, who goes by Snupe, coached Howard assistant Tyler Thornton at Gonzaga, so Thornton always kept tabs on Harper’s career. Thornton checked in during the summer before Harper’s senior year and saw him come off the bench at a local summer tournament, but noticed the once-chubby 6′ 2″ or 6′ 3″ guard had started to stretch out. And with Harper dealing with the loss of his mother, Linda, to breast cancer that May, Thornton invited him to come to open pickup games that summer to scrimmage with the Howard team.
“[I was] just giving him a space to see where he stacks up against kids at the next level,” Thornton says. “When I made the initial invite, it wasn’t, ‘Hey, we need to offer this guy.’ I wanted to give him an outlet to do something out of his normal routine.”
NCAA rules don’t allow coaches to evaluate those summer open runs, but word traveled fast from the players to the staff that Harper could play. Most of the Howard players in those pickup games had been part of a MEAC championship team the year before, and Blakeney and Thornton took their word seriously. Howard became the first school to offer Harper a scholarship in late June 2023. A few months later, Harper picked Howard officially over Radford, Manhattan and Fordham.
His numbers may have been quiet as a senior, but Harper’s body was in the midst of quite the transformation. “Over the course of that year, every time I saw him, I’d tell his dad, ‘Every time I see him, he’s getting taller,’ ” Thornton says. “By the time he got to campus, from the summer before he had grown at least three inches.”
That transformed Harper from a combo guard to a big wing who’s now officially listed at 6′ 8″. He was all the sudden big enough to post up smaller guards and see over the defense, rebound and guard multiple positions, all while still possessing the guard skills he developed as a smaller player. But before he got a chance to show off that skill set, he had to get through Blakeney’s summer conditioning test, which proved problematic for an 18-year-old still working to shed the baby fat.
The test, called “Talladega,” requires players to run the length of their practice facility (one full-sized basketball court and one smaller volleyball court) 10 times in two minutes, then repeat six times with short breaks in between. Until you pass the test, you can’t touch a basketball in practice. It was an excruciating process for Harper, who arrived on campus at 229 pounds and admittedly out of shape. He failed again and again, no matter how much extra work he put in to try to pass. For two months, he was the team’s “towel boy” in practice while working to pass the test instead of getting to show off his basketball talents.
“It was torture,” Harper says. “I felt terrible, like my mental [health] was messed up … my legs would be shaking after.”
“He could’ve quit,” Snupe Harper says. “He could’ve made so many excuses.”
Harper had one last chance to pass the test in August, otherwise he’d be left home from the team’s international trip to Brazil that month. Finally, he broke through and made the time necessary. He was a towel boy no longer and could instead grab his passport. Now that he was finally in game shape, his career exploded.
It started in Brazil, with a 22-point, nine-rebound showing against a professional team in Howard’s final game of the trip that gave him confidence. In practice that fall, he’d often be the best player on the floor, even if he started playing with the ‘B’ team. Harper earned a spot in the starting lineup, made sure he kept it with the 16-point second half at Kansas and was off to the races from there. He won MEAC Rookie of the Week that first week … and has every week following all season. In December, he scored 23 points on the road at Cincinnati, then followed that up a few days later with a 30-point triple-double against non–Division I foe Virginia-Lynchburg. From there, the hype train had fully left the station, and with it came a level of attention Harper had never experienced before.
“It was kind of a culture shock knowing that I ain’t never been a face … I ain’t never been somebody that people look up at,” Harper says. “People [were] just kind of clawing and leeching onto the show.”
Among the proverbial leeches: agents, most of whom were itching to sign a young talent like Harper who they could eventually shop to power-conference schools in the transfer portal. They’ve come en masse via cold text messages and direct messages on X and Instagram, parachuting in to try to get involved in the business of Blake Harper. It was overwhelming at first, with Harper intent on trying to respond to everyone who reached out. Eventually he had to pull the plug, directing all interested parties to speak with his father instead. Harper estimates that over 100 agents or agencies have reached out in some form or fashion; Snupe Harper says he has talked to 17 or 18 at last count and the two will make a decision on representation after the season. Those reaching out range from some of the biggest agencies in basketball, like CAA and Klutch Sports Group, to “little ticky-tack agents” trying to find a niche in the NIL world.
“Agents try to say, ‘Oh yeah, take a call with me, I’m here for you,’” Blake Harper says. “Just hearing different people that had never met me talking to me like they were my big brother and like, I should trust them with my life and my financial records. It’s kind of funny to hear it coming from somebody I’ve never met before and not knowing [any] background. You don’t know what they could do with your life.”
The dangled financial promises that have become a regular part of agents’ pitches to athletes don’t resonate as much with the Harpers. Snupe Harper being a longtime high school coach in the area gives him a better understanding of the current landscape than many other players’ parents going through similar circumstances. He says any agent who comes to the table just talking about how much Blake can earn next year isn’t going to move the needle.
“Agents know I know the business a little bit and so they’re not going to try to get me all enamored with the money,” Snupe Harper says.
Snupe Harper’s coaching background also means he has plenty of college coaching connections. He says he’s heard from many of those connections over the last few months, but those who have reached out are not so much trying to coax Blake into the portal and as they are lining up in case he does.
“They’re not asking so much, ‘Is he willing to transfer?’ ” Snupe Harper says. “It’s more that they want to be thought of and maybe later on as we get closer to late March, early April they might come back, but they just wanted to set the table … it’s just little breadcrumbs.”
Frustrating as it may be for Howard to see its best player be tampered with midseason, there’s an understanding that some of this comes with the territory of having the only freshman in the country other than Duke’s Cooper Flagg who’s averaging at least 19 points, six rebounds and three assists per game. But what rubs Blakeney the wrong way is how many of the interested parties have gone about reaching out. For example, one prominent NIL agent who has known Blakeney and members of his staff for over a decade reached out to Harper via DM in January. The agent touted his relationship with Blakeney to Harper, but told Harper he didn’t reach out to Blakeney about it because Blakeney would think the agent was just trying to get Harper to transfer.
“The ones that I’m aware of haven’t had the decency to at least call and say, ‘Hey, I’d love to have a conversation with Blake. I have some opportunities that may be on the table for him, do you mind if I have a conversation with him?’” Blakeney says. “When you have guys that are immature and guys that are doing their business the wrong way, that’s the result that you get. It’s neat to know who those people are even if you’ve done a whole lot for those people in the past and helped them get established with their companies and businesses.”
At the same time, Blakeney and the entire Howard coaching staff have raved about the transparency from the Harpers throughout the process. Harper’s maturity has allowed Blakeney to get deeper with him than most players going through something similar, and the long-standing relationship Snupe Harper has with Blakeney and Thornton also meant there was trust on both sides to do right by one another, whatever happens.
“[Blake] is such a mature young man that the conversations that he and I can have can be at a level of maturity, an adult conversation that you probably couldn’t have with another young freshman or maybe any young man that’s in your program [experiencing] what he’s experiencing,” Blakeney says.
Because of that, Howard isn’t going to go down in the Blake Harper sweepstakes without a fight. First, there’s the basketball-centric pitch. Harper’s game has taken off at Howard. Howard was, in Harper’s words, the first program to believe in him. He can’t say enough good things about the development he has received in his year at Howard, saying he gets “the best player development in the country” from Thornton, who works him out himself instead of being relegated to working with a graduate assistant like he might at a bigger school. In games, he’s given almost unlimited freedom to go make plays, playing with the ball in his hands regularly despite not being the team’s true point guard. He gets to operate in ball screens, out of post-ups and in isolation instead of being relegated to an off-ball shooting role like might happen elsewhere. He also gets to play through mistakes, having played at least 35 minutes in more than half of Howard’s games this season. Not bad for a player who’s still only months removed from not being able to pass a conditioning test.
With how rapidly Harper’s game has blossomed after being taken out of the structured role he was forced into in high school and given the keys like he has at Howard, it’s not impossible to dream about an NBA future if he can continue on this upward trajectory. Even if a high-major school can offer a big payday in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to play next year, the fear of getting pushed back into role-player status and stunting Harper’s development lingers.
“Our game is for him to be able to play and showcase his skills and his abilities, and if you’re talking money, you’re not talking time on the floor,” Snupe Harper says. “The only way that we can get to the real money and the pension and all those good things that I want for my grandchildren and my great grandchildren, you can’t get that with $500,000 sitting on the bench.”
Plus, Howard is doing everything it can to put Harper on NBA radars. NBA scouts have seen Harper in practices and games. At a game in early February, Washington Wizards general manager Will Dawkins was there watching with his son, who had attended Howard camps that summer. An NBA minority team owner has even stopped by practice. When there are heavily scouted college games upcoming in the D.C. area, chief program strategist Daniel Marks (a former Milwaukee Bucks front office member) blasts out emails to all his NBA contacts encouraging them to swing by Howard, too. That convinced four NBA teams to swing by a Howard game after a UConn vs. Georgetown matchup, and Harper had 23 points, seven rebounds and six assists that afternoon in a win over Morgan State.
Howard’s also intent on building Harper’s brand and doing everything it can to make him not feel like he’s sacrificing to be there, even if the program may not have the multimillion-dollar revenue-sharing budget that most high-major programs plan on using to attract top transfers this offseason. Marks’s role is unique in the current college basketball landscape, combining NIL and brand-building for the program with a traditional basketball operations position. Marks’s experience in the role has allowed Howard to be more proactive in working to retain Harper after losing stars Elijah Hawkins (Texas Tech) and Steve Settle (Temple) to the transfer portal two years ago. Howard was named the most innovative NIL program in the country by Opendorse last year. Program leaders feel they can help Harper capitalize on his newfound stardom in a way meaningful to Harper and distinct to Howard.
“My job is, how can we show Blake through—whether it’s brand deals, exposure, connections that he makes—that hey, what you’re doing here at Howard has the potential to be transformational to your future,” Marks says.
One way is setting up Harper with advocacy work in D.C. surrounding breast cancer awareness after his mother died from the disease in 2023. He recently appeared on the Hope Ignited podcast run by the National Breast Cancer Foundation. He has met with the Black Chamber of Commerce and has an NIL deal with a mental health app called Inner Journey, which allowed him to host a free yoga session and mental health panel with Howard students.
Those partnerships alone aren’t enough to keep up with bigger-budget programs though, which largely tap a handful of super-rich boosters for NIL support and multimillion-dollar TV deals that help fund revenue sharing. A 2024 Opendorse report said over 80% of the total NIL market is driven by collectives, which are largely driven by donor dollars rather than true brand partnerships. But Howard has resources of its own to tap into: It has a collective called the Mecca Society and has invested in the program lately with its recently built practice facility and plans to renovate its coaching offices. While Blakeney says he doesn’t believe Harper’s decision will come down to money, he’s also intent on making sure Harper isn’t being forced to make a choice between big money now and what’s best for his future development.
“I definitely think we can get to a point that is comfortable and that he doesn’t feel like he’s compromising anything,” Blakeney says.
Plus, there’s value to Harper in being at an HBCU and a world-class institution all in one.
“Being at Howard, being at ‘The Mecca,’ being at an HBCU has been so great to me,” Harper says. “Being able to see different aspects of life, seeing Black excellence on the day-to-day, playing with my brothers and going to war with people who look just like me.”
It all sets up a paralyzing decision Harper will make in the coming weeks, one that will shape the basketball future of one of the brightest young talents in mid-major basketball. There’s a stability that comes with Howard, knowing he’ll continue to have the ball in his hands and work with a coaching staff Harper considers like family. If he were to transfer, Snupe Harper says they’d be looking for a chance to play at a higher level, though he noted Blake has had opportunities to play against teams like Kansas and Cincinnati while at Howard. And there’s always the possibility of a bigger school dangling a financial offer that would make anyone seriously consider it. How does Harper square all that?
“Money is very important, but at the same time [I value] relationships, honesty, trust and loyalty,” Harper says. “They’ve always been there for me at my lowest, so why not be at it when I’m at my highest? They offered me a helping hand when I was down. At the same time, money is there … it’s definitely hard to ignore.”
Harper insists nothing will be decided or even seriously considered until the season is over, focused until then on trying to deliver Howard a third straight MEAC tournament championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament. The Bison are fifth in the MEAC at 12–18 overall, 7–6 in league play with their regular-season finale Thursday at home against conference-leading Norfolk State.
His decision is certainly not the foregone conclusion many outsiders have made it out to be.
“Howard, what they’ve done for my son, I can’t put a dollar value on,” Snupe Harper says. “All the things that they’re doing, it’s extra and above and beyond for him to be able to feel comparable to some of his friends that are going to these Power 5 schools. It’s a delicate, delicate juggle between wanting money and wanting to play. At Howard right now, we’re getting really good competition and we’re able to show all of our skills.”
“Howard has been my greatest decision in my 19 years of living, coming here,” Blake Harper says. “That doesn’t mean nothing will change in the future, but right now in my present life, being at Howard has been my best decision.”
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