Dom Campbell understood he had an opportunity.
The 2022 Phillips Exeter Academy (N.H.) forward was headed to Dallas with his Boston-based AAU team, Middlesex Magic, for a tournament May 21-23 that would pit him against a pair of top-60 big men.
In basketball recruiting, one good weekend can entirely alter a player’s outlook. Especially if it comes against top competition. If Campbell performed well, he could grow his profile from a mid-major prospect with offers from mainly Northeast colleges to a high-major recruit.
His first foe was Nike-sponsored Houston Hoops and No. 58 overall prospect Zuby Ejiofor, who’s now committed to Kansas. Campbell hung 18 points in 20 minutes, with many of them against Ejiofor.
Eyes opened.
Later in the weekend came Team Trae Young, a top adidas program with Vanderbilt-bound forward Lee Dort (No. 39 overall). Campbell put up 23 points, largely with Dort on his hip.
Eyes widened.
“I knew it was my time to shine,” Campbell said. “I think I made the most of that opportunity.”
College coaches weren’t permitted to attend in-person, but word of his performance trickled back to them. So did live streams and video clip compilations of his big games. Magic coach Michael Crotty had previously mentioned Campbell to Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey and his assistants, which elicited intrigue. After Campbell’s outburst, the Irish were sold. They offered Campbell two days later.
“They didn’t hesitate,” Crotty said. “They said, ‘We want to move, we want to recruit him.’”
From there, Campbell’s and the Magic’s Twitter feeds turned into a deluge of offer announcements. South Carolina. Virginia Tech. Stanford. Oklahoma. Providence. Illinois. By mid-June, Campbell had at least one offer from every Power Five conference and the Big East. Notre Dame first saw him in-person in June, and he drilled four three-pointers in the opening minutes of a game with Brey in attendance.
Campbell set June official visits to Stanford, Oklahoma and Notre Dame. The last one stood out.
Brey likened the 6-8, 235-pound Campbell to 2014-18 Irish forward Bonzie Colson, a similarly sized center who could post up, pass, shoot and rebound. Campbell clicked with the current roster, the vibe on campus and the Irish’s plan for him. He had heard good things from Crotty, who coached former Irish guard Pat Connaughton and senior guard Cormac Ryan with the Magic.
Furthermore, he remembered the Irish were the first high-major team to contact him and to offer.
“That was a big factor because they were the first school to take a chance on me, and other schools might’ve followed their lead,” Campbell said. “It gave me a good impression.”
It was enough to make him move up his decision timeline from the fall to July. Wednesday, he became Notre Dame’s first commitment of the 2022 class.
“Notre Dame felt like the right place,” Campbell said. “The connections there, the people there, the coaches, fan base, everything about it was perfect.”
All told, the last two months are enough of a plot twist to be a story on their own. Breakouts like Campbell’s, though, are often just the final chapters. The bulk of the story happens before anyone is paying attention. It’s not just that an unranked (not for long) recruit outplayed top-60 prospects. It’s how and why he could do it, and why he became a commodity. That process started a couple years back.
“What really happened is his ascent has been part of this two-year commitment to changing his body and developing his skill level,” Crotty said. “He did that every week. Every time you see him in practice, you’re like, ‘He’s getting better.’ Sometimes when you coach a guy — especially a big guy — you can feel them getting better every practice, every game, almost every half. He had it going.”
That doesn’t happen without Campbell challenging himself.
Campbell is from outside Portland, Maine, and played three years at The Waynflete School in Portland, which has fewer than 250 students in grades 9-12. He played for a Maine-based, non-sponsored AAU team as well. It’s not exactly a basketball hotbed or a rigorous development infrastructure.
So Campbell sought a challenge. He enrolled at Phillips Exeter for 2020-21, repeating his junior year, and started playing for the Magic last summer. He drives two hours to the team’s twice-per-week practices. And while Exeter didn’t play this past season, its practices still pushed him.
“The main thing was my body and getting in better shape, better conditioned and stronger, but also getting a more consistent jump shot,” Campbell said. “That’s one of the reasons a lot of these schools were recruiting me, because I could be a bully and stretch the floor. That consistent jump shot is what I think took my game to the next level.”
Crotty’s assessment is the same — his personal view and college coaches’ feedback to him. Centers who can post up can be useful. Centers who are inside-out threats can be difference-makers in college basketball.
“He’s a big guy who can play away from the hoop, make threes, work in dribble-handoffs, make good passes,” he said. “There are bigs like that who don’t have the desire to go down in the post and do the nasty stuff, but he has the size and strength to do it and he likes to do it. He likes to bury people, to screen people, likes to offensive rebound and score on the block. It’s that combination and knowing how much he has improved.”
And understanding how much he can still grow his game — which Crotty views as achievable upside rather than concerning limitations. Campbell has taken himself this far. There’s no interest in stopping now.
“It’s his work ethic, which excites me because I think he’s fantastic now,” Crotty said, “but I think he can become even better, even stronger, even more skilled, even more athletic.”
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