Where is Seventh Woods going to college?

There hasn’t been a day in the past month that Hammond basketball coach Mark McClam hasn’t been asked the question.

People want to know, “Where is Seventh Woods going to college?”

The Hammond senior finally will give that answer at a ceremony Wednesday morning, the first day of the fall early signing period. Woods narrowed his choices to Georgetown, North Carolina and South Carolina, but most feel he’ll be either a Tar Heel or a Gamecock.

“It is amazing that it is finally here to make a decision,” McClam said before practice last Wednesday. “He has been so highly recruited and had so many schools looking at him.

“He has two fantastic choices between North Carolina and South Carolina. Those coaches have done great recruiting him over the last bunch of years. Either decision is going to be an excellent one for him.”

Woods has done his best to keep his choice a secret, even to his teammates. Chevez Goodwin, who will sign Wednesday with the College of Charleston, said Woods hasn’t told him where he’s going.

“I’m just as excited as everybody else to see where he is going to go,” Goodwin said.

Woods said there will be a little bit of relief when he announces his choice, but he has had fun with the recruiting process and the scrutiny that’s come with it. He can’t post anything on Twitter without someone reading into it on where he might be headed.

“It has been a fun process and really hasn’t bothered me,” Woods said. “I know next Wednesday it may die down a little bit or hype up even more, but I am looking forward to getting it over with.”

The 6-foot-2, 175 pounds Woods said there are plenty of positives about UNC and USC and likes both teams’ pace of play. North Carolina has been recruiting him the longest, and Woods said UNC coach Roy Williams reminds him of how he can be the point guard to lead the Tar Heels’ fast-paced offense.

Staying close to home at USC also has its advantages. He could play alongside Spring Valley’s P.J. Dozier, who chose to play for the Gamecocks last year.

“Both fit my style of play and I think I can be successful at all the schools I am choosing from,” Woods said. “It just comes down to where I fit in best or where I want to call home really.”

Woods is one of the top recruits in the Class of 2016 and is ranked 34^th nationally by Scout, 55^th by ESPN and 56^th by 247Sports. He played in the Under Armour Elite Top 24 in Brooklyn, N.Y., in August.

Woods also attended NBA MVP Steph Curry’s camp, an invitation-only event in California for the top 30 guards in the country, the past two seasons. In 2013, he earned a gold medal playing for Team USA’s 16U team.

Woods has been on the basketball landscape since clips of him dunking as an 11-year-old hit YouTube. His mixtape as a 14-year-old earned more than 13.6 million hits on YouTube. As a sophomore, one of his dunks earned top play on SportsCenter, beating out a dunk by LeBron James.

Last year, ESPN’s Grantland did a featured piece on Woods titled “The Seventh Coming.”

Despite all that, McClam marvels at how Woods has done a great job of staying grounded.

“He is a very humble and quiet kid. I don’t know anyone that could get almost 15 million YouTube hits and not get a big head. That is never the case,” the Hammond coach said. “He has never complained about shots and scoring. He is kind of old-school. He can dunk on someone and you might get a little smile (from him), but that is about it. He just plays and has an amazing personality and stays humble.”

Woods credits his parents for helping him stay grounded, but also he made a concentrated effort to do it himself.

“I told myself, ‘I am not where I want to be at.’ I still got college to go to and my dream is to make it in the NBA, so I still got a lot of work to do,” Woods said.

Putting in extra work is something Woods isn’t afraid to do. For the past two months, he has gotten up at 5:15 a.m. for his 6 a.m. workout sessions with trainer Marseilles Brown.

He said those sessions help him get more reps and polished as he prepares for his senior season.

Woods, who can play point or shooting guard, averaged 16.3 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 3.6 steals in helping the Skyhawks to the SCISA 3A state championship last season.

Woods said he concentrated more on his passing last year and that might have been one of the reasons his scoring average dipped from 20 points a game as a sophomore.

“This year, I’m trying to get back to the old me as people say,” Woods said. “Just go down, score and do what I do best, not really about playing a position. At the end of the day, I am a scorer and that is what I am going to do.”

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Where is Seventh Woods going to college?."