2019 commit Daniel Buie showed up for his official visit to Northwestern on Sept. 14 looking for a family atmosphere. That’s not unusual for a recruiting prospect who wants to feel at home wherever he goes to college.

But what is remarkable is that Buie not only found that family atmosphere – he also found family.

Buie, a three-star guard, visited that weekend with fellow 2019 prospect Jared Jones, a three-star, 6-foot-9 forward. Neither had ever laid eyes on each other before. Buie grew up in Troy, N.Y., and is in his second year at Bethel (Maine) Gould Academy, while Jones is from Powder Springs (Ga.) McEachern, some 1,200 miles away.

While they were getting to know each other during the visit, Jones kept questioning Buie about his family because he thought he had some relatives with the same last name. Eventually, they called Buie’s mother to get to the bottom of the issue.

Sure enough, they found out that they were distant cousins on Buie’s father’s side.

“It was pretty crazy,” said Buie.

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the two cousins both wound up Wildcats. Buie committed to Northwestern that very same day, just hours after he set foot on campus for the first time. Jones gave the Wildcats a silent commitment that weekend but took another visit, to Wake Forest, just to make sure that NU was the right fit. He finally gave head coach Chris Collins his verbal pledge a little more than two weeks later, on Sept. 30.

Now, Buie and Jones will be more than just teammates at Northwestern. They will be family.

But it was another family member who played a critical role in Buie’s decision to become a Wildcat. And it was a family who was once a thorn – no, more like a dagger – in the Northwestern basketball program’s side.

Find out more in this WildcatReport premium recruiting story.