Eventually, Rawle's high school dominance became a problem.
During his third season at Christ the King, it surfaced that he had played with the Palm Beach Central varsity team as an eighth-grader.
His time on the team counted as a "season" of high school eligibility, even though he played in just eight games.
Arbitello tried to appeal the Catholic High School Athletic Association to allow Rawle to play as a senior in 2014-15, but said he wasn't going to get an answer until that September.
Rawle wondered if he was being singled out.
"I have a feeling if I wasn't the type of player I am today, where I'm getting all this national attention, if I wasn't that good, they'd let me play and wouldn't care," Alkins told the New York Daily News as a junior. "But the fact that I'm talented is hurting me."
Eventually, Arbitello advised Rawle to leave even before a ruling came down. The best player in New York City sought a new home for his senior year, or what would be known as his fifth season in basketball terms.
"The truth of the matter is we play in the best league in the country, we won three city championships with Rawle, and somebody brought up the question of his eligibility," Arbitello said. "We could have waited to see if they made him eligible or not but I just said to him and his mother it's unfair to a kid to start over in another school in September, so I told him and his parents they should get him enrolled somewhere else."
Rawle headed to play as a fifth-year senior at Word of God Academy in Raleigh, N.C., the city that shares a pronunciation with Alkins' first name but little else. Rawle said he enjoyed being in such a basketball-crazy area, taking unofficial visits to North Carolina and North Carolina State, but found the academic side wasn't working out.
Having left Christ the King as a junior who still needed work to get eligible for college, Alkins said he struggled in Raleigh. He left the Word of God team just before its final regular-season tournament in order to focus on academics.
"If it was up to me, I would have spent my senior year at Christ the King, but I had to look for a prep school," Rawle said. "I wouldn't say it was a good year because I didn't finish the year out. I was focusing on college and on trying to qualify for college, studying for SATs."
The diversion from basketball dealt Alkins a publicity hit. Because he was ruled a fifth-year senior, that meant he wasn't eligible for a possible selection in the McDonald's All-Star Game, while he also didn't play in the Jordan Brand Classic. He didn't resurface again until he had 23 points and 11 rebounds in the Capital Classic at Washington, D.C., in late April.
Of course, none of that ever really fooled college basketball recruiters. Provided he could get eligible — and Alkins said he knew he would by the spring — he was still being courted by all the usual elite powers.
Eventually, he chose Arizona as his future home.
— Bruce Pascoe
