Whenever Quincy Douby visited his alma mater over the past decade, he usually heard the same thing from Steve Pikiell.
“Your son has a scholarship here,” the Rutgers men’s basketball coach would tell the program great, who had arguably the best college career of any Scarlet Knight this century.
But while he was flattered, the elder Douby told his namesake that they would not acknowledge those early overtures publicly because “they kind of offered you because of me.”
“I really want you to become good and earn it,” Quincy Sr. told his son.
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Three years into a standout high school career, Quincy Douby Jr. has earned the opportunity to follow his father’s footsteps. The news came on Friday, when Pikiell called Douby Sr. to officially extend a scholarship offer to his son and let him know that Rutgers is “interested in Q” and “thinks he could be a very good asset to the team.”
While he told his son that he is “not going to pick” where he goes to school because he wants to be sure he “feels comfortable with the situation yourself,” Douby Sr. admitted he is “really thankful” he got the Rutgers offer.
“I’m just excited that they’re giving him an opportunity to play where I played and whether he picked to go there or not, just the opportunity and just for them giving him a chance and a look, it really, really makes me feel good,” Douby Sr. told NJ Advance Media in a phone call on Sunday afternoon. “I’m really happy about that.”
Rutgers joins multiple high-major programs — Ole Miss, Florida State, Wake Forest — in the race for Douby Jr., a consensus four-star prospect that is ranked 84th nationally in the 2027 class on the 247Sports Composite. The Scarlet Knights plan to come watch the 6-foot-5, 175-pound prospect lead his Riviera Prep (Miami, Fl.) team in the state playoffs this month.
It will be Pikiell’s first time watching Douby Jr. play in person, Douby Sr. said. What he will see, according to Douby Sr., is a player “years ahead” of where his father was at his age.
“His handle is a lot better than mine. Defensively, he’s better than me. He shoots off the dribble better than me. But overall, I was the better shooter,” Douby Sr. said. “With time, it’s going to be able to develop. Overall, at the same age, I think he is a better player. I’m working with him. I played in the league, in the Big East, overseas. I’m teaching him the game where I kind of learned it on my own. I was a late bloomer.”
He bloomed just in time to become one of the most accomplished Scarlet Knights in modern program history. Douby scored 1,690 points across three seasons, good for sixth in program history.
After averaging a Big East-best 25.4 points per game as a junior in 2005-06, he entered the NBA Draft, where he was selected 19th overall by the Sacramento Kings, making him the highest picked Rutgers player this century until Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey were each selected in the top 5 last summer.
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Douby played in the NBA for three years before heading overseas, where he represented 12 clubs across five countries: China, Beirut, Jordan, Spain and Turkey. He retired in 2020 and began working in real estate and coaching basketball in Miami while finding time to finish his college degree at Rutgers.
His graduation ceremony in 2023 was one of the multiple times Douby visited Piscataway during Pikiell’s decade-long tenure. He brought his oldest son on a visit in 2021, and as Douby Jr. shot around at the gym inside the program’s practice facility, Pikiell watched on. The coach extended an offer to the middle schooler inside his office, but Douby Sr. wanted to see his son earn the opportunity himself.
That desire came true last week, and the Rutgers basketball great could not be more of a proud father.
“Everybody wants their kid to be successful, especially in something that they were successful in, so it feels good,” Douby Sr. said. “It just makes me feel appreciative and makes me feel like he admires the success I had in the game. He wants to add to the Douby name. It feels great, man. I’m really happy, I’m really excited about the future, and he’s just got to continue to work. Everything is gonna end up where it needs to end up.”
