Hikeem Stewart commtment to Washington has a backstory

About two weeks ago, Hikeem Stewart committed to play his college basketball at Washington.

This alone shouldn't come as a surprise. Stewart is a borderline top 100 recruit that plays his high school basketball at Rainier Beach in Seattle, one of the best high school programs in the country that has produced talents like Doug Christie, Jamal Crawford, Terrence Williams, and U-Dub's own Nate Robinson.

An athletic combo-guard in the class of 2011, Stewart should fit in nicely with this Lorenzo Romar's Washington team.

Hikeem Stewart is headed to Washington.
(photo credit: Seattle Times)

That said, his commitment was still a surprise to many, but not because of anything Hikeem did.

Hikeem is the younger brother of twins Lodrick and Rodrick Stewart. Both initially enrolled at USC in 2003, but Rodrick eventually transferred to Kansas, where he won the 2008 national title. Their path to USC wasn't the simplest, however. The Stewarts, who were members of a loaded Rainier Beach team during their high school days (it also included Terrence Williams, Nate Robinson, and former Kansas Jayhawk and Oregon State Beaver CJ Giles), were both being recruited fairly heavily by Romar. But, as detailed in this 2002 article from the Seattle Times, Romar pulled his scholarship offers off the table once he received a commitment from Tre Simmons.

The main reason for Romar pulling the offer is that the Stewarts were a package deal, and he only wanted to use two of the four scholarships he had available for that class on perimeter players. But another reason was that part of the Stewart package was Bull Stewart, their father.

This is where the story gets a bit strange. A reporter for the Seattle Times went to a game that the twins were playing back in 2002 and got the scoop on their commitment to USC. But Bull Stewart had already promised a Seattle TV station an exclusive on the twins' college announcement. So he called the reporter, lied to her, and got the twins to lie as well, telling her that the two were actually committing to Washington, who wasn't recruiting them anymore.

That didn't stop Hikeem from choosing his hometown school. In fact, the twins supported Hikeem's decision to pick UW.