Rivals national basketball analyst Eric Bossi couldn't put a name to the number.
As he sat and watched a game at an AAU event three years ago, there was one player who stood out above the rest. The only problem is the high schooler wasn't listed on the roster.
"I was immediately like, 'OK, I need to go find out who this kid is,'" Bossi recalled. "It was pretty clear that he was a guy who was going to be a national level recruit."
That unknown player ended up being Joshua Christopher, who would go on to become a known commodity that attracted no shortage of college suitors to his door and NBA players and celebrities to his games.
Christopher, a five-star guard out of Lakewood, California, is one of the nation's premier prospects in the 2020 class _ he's ranked the No. 7 overall recruit by 247Sports and No. 11 by Rivals _ and is Michigan's top recruiting target in a battle that includes Arizona State, Missouri, UCLA and, as of Tuesday, USC.
The Wolverines are the presumed front-runner to land Christopher, who would become the crown jewel of coach Juwan Howard's first recruiting class and the highest-rated recruit to commit to Michigan in the 247Sports recruiting rankings era, which dates to 1999.
"The kid has always been somewhat in the spotlight and a relatively big-time name," said Rivals national basketball analyst Corey Evans, who thought Christopher was a "phenomenal talent" the first time he saw him play in person the summer before his sophomore year at Mayfair High.
"I didn't know he'd become this good or this big of a deal over the next two, three years."
One person who had an inkling Christopher would blow up is longtime Mayfair varsity basketball coach Tony Davis, who just completed his 13th season at the school. Davis has known the Christopher family since Joshua, the youngest of four basketball-playing siblings, was a little kid. His sister Paris played at Saint Mary's, his oldest brother Patrick was an All-Pac-12 guard at Cal and his other brother Caleb just completed his freshman season at Arizona State.
Even though Davis didn't start paying close attention to Joshua until he was in an organized setting in the eighth grade, Davis thought he had the potential to reach the high-major level given his family's pedigree.
"And, obviously," Davis said, with a laugh, "that has occurred."
As a freshman at Mayfair, Christopher started on the varsity squad and led team in scoring at 14.4 points per game. According to Davis, Christopher was only the second or third freshman to start during his tenure and the first he counted on to score.
"I had guys who could come in and defend and score six or eight points," Davis said, "but nobody would come in and give us that type of offensive impact right away."
Christopher made a huge leap _ from a physical and skill set standpoint _ from his freshman to sophomore year as he started to take advantage of his lower-body strength. His offensive production nearly doubled, jumping to 25.9 points per game, and, as Davis puts it, "he just took off from there."
Christopher averaged 25 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.2 assists in 32 games as a junior. He followed that up by averaging 29.4 points, 11.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists over 29 games in his senior campaign.
"The last two years I think he's fallen in love with working out and being in the gym," Davis said. "When he was younger, he didn't have that same drive, that same hunger. He would work out, but it was you having to tell him to come in.
"To see him fall in love with improving his game, whether that's physically or mentally watching film, it was a treat for me to see him grow up and understand what it took to continue to climb."
