The 6-foot-6, 175-pounder said he chose Penn State over Syracuse, Georgetown, Temple, Villanova, Rutgers, Miami, and Tennessee.
"I chose Penn State because of the academics, the coaches, the school, and the program," said Austin, who averages 13 points and 7.5 assists. "I felt like it was a good program for me, and I like it a lot."
He also likes that the Nittany Lions give their point guards freedom to be creative.
Providing exposure
Deion Barnes was curious.
As an unheralded junior football player at Northeast High, Barnes wanted to be like Je'Ron and Malik Stokes.
The Stokes brothers, Vikings teammates of Barnes, were on the radar of Division I college programs.
"And I'm looking like I got the same talent as them," said Barnes, now a redshirt freshman defensive end at Penn State. "I need to get out there like that, too."
So Barnes and his parents started talking to Ron Stokes, Malik's and Je'Ron's father, who runs Top Prospect Sports.
The summer before his senior season, Barnes said, Ron Stokes took him to Michigan for a football camp and to tour the campus.
"And Michigan made a scholarship offer there," Barnes said. "And I'll say about two weeks or three weeks after that, I carried about at least 15 offers."
Stokes said that was part of his plan. And it still is.
That's why he walked away from being an accountant in the finance department of the Crozer Chester Medical Center three years ago to turn Top Prospect Sports into a full-time job.
These days, he puts his athletes through three days a week of weight training at Nirvana Athletic & Fitness Center in the Northeast. On Saturdays, Stokes supervises drills at Velocity Sports Performance in Cherry Hill. And in June, he will conduct his third annual college tour.
