CHICAGO — Tyrone Slaughter expects Jahlil Okafor's college basketball season — likely his only one — will end with an NCAA championship.
"Without any reservation, Duke shall be the 2015 NCAA champions because they have Jahlil Okafor," Slaughter, the Whitney Young boys basketball head coach, said of the former Dolphins star who has led the Blue Devils to the Final Four.
Slaughter said believes Okafor, whose Blue Devils face Michigan State on Saturday, with the victor meeting either Kentucky or Wisconsin in Monday's title tilt, will leave Durham, N.C., after this season.
"At the end of the day, there's very little to be gained from him staying," Slaughter told DNAinfo Chicago Monday. "When you look at the dominance he's displayed at the collegiate level, there's challenges ahead of him, not behind him.
"From my perspective, I wish he would leave," Slaughter added. "He's done all he can at this level. You always want to win a national championship, but staying doesn't guarantee he's going to get closer."
Slaughter said everyone at Whitney Young is rooting for the freshman Okafor, a frontrunner for men's hoops player of the year honors and the projected No. 1 pick in June's NBA draft. He said he realized Okafor was destined for greatness when he first coached him the summer before the center's first season at Whitney Young.
"He's going to be the best player to ever come out of Whitney Young," Slaughter said. "We've had some phenomenal players like Quentin Richardson and Sam Thompson, but with Jahlil, we knew he was going to be a special college player because of the skills he had as a 14-year-old. Unless he stops working — and nothing about him suggests that — he will be able to dominate at the next level, too."
Slaughter also doesn't think Okafor will be intimidated by the Final Four atmosphere — noting that the 6-foot-10 center always has been able to win championships, even in grade school.
"I've never seen him pale under the lights," Slaughter said. "As the lights get brighter, his play gets better.
"There's something to say about athletes who have won at every level," Slaughter added. "And when you look at Jahlil, at every level of his basketball life, he's won, from AAU championships to high school championships. All he's ever done has excelled."
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