Much of the recruiting is done in the summer, and if prospects don't play during those months it is harder to get noticed.

Harrow missed summer play in the summer of 2006 because of a slipped disk and in 2007 because of a broken right wrist.

He has been out of the recruiting mainstream to the extent that Dave Telep, the director of recruiting for Scout.com, has not yet evaluated him.

"I need to see him more," Telep said. "I honestly haven't seen him enough yet to say much about him accurately."

But Harrow also illustrates that if you can play, somebody is going to find you.

Harrow is a 5-foot-11 guard who will begin his junior year at Marietta (Ga.) Walton this fall.

He had lived with his sister until last spring and had attended Concord (N.C.) Cannon School, where he had played varsity basketball since the eighth grade.

Harrow helped the Cougars win the NCISAA 2-A championship as an eighth grader and led the team to the semifinals as a ninth grader.

He played at Cannon for most of last season, but left in February to join his mother in Georgia after the death of his grandmother.

Wolfpack assistant Monte Towe visited Cannon, which is about 25 miles northeast of Charlotte, during Harrow's freshman season to look at 6-6 Jarell Eddie. Harrow caught Towe's eye.

State coaches have watched him ever since, and when other schools lost contact with Harrow last spring after he transferred, the Pack stayed in touch.

State invited him to its summer camp and after watching him play, offered him a scholarship.

He quickly accepted.

"I'm going to State," he said. "That's my school."

Since his commitment to State, several schools, including Clemson, Florida, Tennessee, have called.

"But I'm going to State," he said. "I like Coach [Sidney] Lowe and the atmosphere there a lot."

Walton coach Joe Goydish said Harrow's early commitment was the result of a school doing a great job of recruiting.

"State got him and won him, before a lot of people knew about him," Goydish said.

Harrow isn't impressive physically -- he weighs just 150 pounds. But he wears a size 13 shoe and he has long arms. Doctors have told him that he may grow to the 6-2 or 6-3 range.

"If he does that, he is going to be one of the top 25 players in the country before he is done," Goydish said.

"He does everything great now except play defense. He is a good defender, but not a great one.

"But as far as quickness, skills, shooting, passing, he is great. And he'd just as soon make a great pass as score himself."

Goydish said Kevin Kruger, who played at Arizona State and UNLV, is the best high school point guard he has seen, but that Harrow could be better.

Playing at Walton will be a big jump in competition for Harrow. Cannon, an N.C. Independent School Athletic Association small school power in basketball, has about 150 students in grades 9 through 12. Walton has 2,600 students and is ranked among the top academic schools in the country by Newsweek magazine.

The Atlanta-area school will face teams loaded with Division I prospects. Harrow will be playing alongside 6-4 Glen Rice Jr., a top Georgia Tech target who averaged 27 points per game as a junior at Walton.

Rice's father played in the NBA for 15 years and led Michigan to the 1989 NCAA championship.

"Ryan and Glen play together very well," Goydish said. "Ryan is so unselfish and Glen is, too."

Harrow said his biggest objective in games is making his teammates better.

"That's my job," he said.

And he is solidly committed to State, he said.

"State has been my No. 1 school for a while. It found me," he said.