Huskers land Miami transfer Palmer Jr.

When James Palmer Jr. left Nebraska following his official visit last week, a part of him knew he would end up a Husker.

The junior-to-be shooting guard spent the past two seasons at Miami had initially planned on visiting at least one or two other schools following his time in Lincoln, but a week later he decided there was no point in dragging things out any longer.

On Sunday, the former four-star Rivals150 prospect from Upper Marlboro, Md., who attended St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C., called up NU head coach Tim Miles and lead recruiter Kenya Hunter and announced he was committing to Nebraska.

“When I first transferred to the University of Miami, I was looking for a school and a coach that would have the utmost trust in me, and a perfect system that would allow me to play my game as well,” Palmer told HuskerOnline.com. “When I took the visit to Nebraska, it just blew me away.

“That was a big factor for me. When I took my visit, me and Coach Miles talked, and that was one of our plans. I’m very excited. I’m very excited to get down there and start working immediately.”

Palmer will have to sit out the 2016-17 season per NCAA transfer rules and will have two years of eligibility remaining. He plans to move to Lincoln in June for the start of the first five-week summer session.

The Huskers now have two available scholarships for the 2016 class.

The 6-foot-6, 202-pounder initially had planned to take a second official visit to Temple this weekend, but ended up cancelling those plans earlier this week. Nebraska was his lone visit after leaving Miami.

Other schools that had shown interest in Palmer included Cal, Washington and Cincinnati. Other schools such as Maryland, Memphis, Wake Forest, and Rutgers had also offered when he was the No. 99 overall player in the 2014 class coming out of high school.

Palmer ended up choosing Miami, where he played in 38 games as true freshman, averaging 3.7 points and 1.4 rebounds as a true freshman.

Last year wasn’t the improvement he was hoping for as a sophomore, though, as he averaged just 12 minutes in 34 games and only put up 3.5 points and 1.2 rebounds while shooting 36.4 percent from the field and 27.7 percent from 3-point range.

Despite the lack of production, Palmer ensured that he was ready to bring far more to the table in his new opportunity with the Huskers.

“You’re going to get a hard-working player that loves to win,” Palmer said.

Though he had known in the back of his mind that he wanted to commit to NU for a few days now, Palmer said he decided to wait until Sunday in order to make the day a bit more special Hunter.

“Today is Coach Hunter’s birthday, so I surprised him with a birthday present,” Palmer said.