ANN ARBOR -- Basketball players are among the natural resources of New Jersey, right up there with tomatoes, pharmaceuticals, cul-de-sacs and deer.

In North Jersey, the last decade or so has produced names -- big names: Kyrie Irving, Andrew Bynum, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Luol Deng, Kyle Anderson, J.R. Smith, Al Harrington, Dahntay Jones and endless others. The projected No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft, Karl-Anthony Towns, was born in Piscataway and went to high school in Metuchen. He starred at Kentucky last year and will be replaced in Lexington by Isaiah Briscoe, a McDonald's All-American from Union, New Jersey, about 15 miles north of Metuchen.

In North Jersey, the "great ones" are followed by the "next ones" and the same path is followed. Step one is blossoming at one of the state's perennial high school powerhouses. In recent decades, the list started with Bob Hurley Sr.'s mighty St. Anthony program and was followed by Seton Hall Prep, St. Patrick's High, St. Benedict's Prep and so on. Step two is going to a college program with a basketball birthmark -- Duke, Syracuse and Kentucky have plucked talent from these parts, while Villanova and other East Coast powers grab what's left.

This is how it's done, and how it's always been done.

That is, except, in the case of Tyus Battle.

***

An otherwise normal Sunday night at the Buffalo Wild Wings near Edison, New Jersey, took a sudden turn.

Gary Battle and his family sat around a table. It was Mother's Day and the time finally came for the group to relax after a long travel weekend. But Gary could tell his son was thinking something. He could see it in Tyus' eyes.

Then, with little notice ...

"Man, I want to be a Wolverine," Tyus Battle said.

The restaurant kept bustling. An NBA Eastern Conference showdown between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Chicago Bulls was slated for that night. Beers poured from the bar and wings poured from the kitchen.

At the Battle's table, Gary, along with Tanya, Tyus' step-mother, and Khalif, his brother, and GiGi, his sister, sat stunned, staring at Tyus. Gary finally spoke.

"Whoa! ...

"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Let's slow down, now."

Tyus Battle, 17, wasn't slowing down. If anything, he was speeding up. A nationally known basketball prospect since the eighth grade, the 6-foot-6 guard was done with the recruiting process. He was done looking. In the 48 hours prior, he had traveled to the University of Michigan for an official visit, been courted by the U-M coaches and introduced to the players.

That was the end of that. Battle came to Ann Arbor on a tour to find the right fit. The search was short. It came fast, but slow, like a yawn.

"But still, for Tyus to make a quick decision like that," Gary Battle said, in hindsight, "that's just not like him."

Before Michigan, Battle -- currently one of the country's top rising high school senior shooting guards -- had visited Duke, Louisville, Kentucky, Syracuse, Villanova, Ohio State and Miami. Gary thought his son might pick Syracuse or Louisville, but most likely Duke. Both Tanya and his mother, Daniella, were smitten with Duke.

And why shouldn't they have been? Duke is college basketball's defending national champion and is coached by Mike Krzyzewski, the Lincoln to John Wooden's Washington on Mount Rushmore. Despite Battle growing up a North Carolina Tar Heels fan, everyone in the closed-quarters world of North Jersey hoops saw him as a Blue Devil.

They were wrong.

Just like they were wrong three years beforehand.

"Look, the Dukes are great and the Kentuckys are great and all those schools are all great, but Tyus is doing something where he's saying, hey, you know what, I want to go to Michigan and help that team get to a Final Four or to a national championship," Mergin Sina said. "I think that's a big thing. I think Tyus is bred that way."

Sina, the head coach at Gill St. Bernard's High School, would know.

Tyus Battle as an eighth-grader in 2012.

Battle grew up as a commodity in youth basketball. He played in 17-and-under leagues as a middle schooler and was recruited by Rutgers, Seton Hall, Villanova, Ohio State, Baylor and Cincinnati as an 8th grade. Rob Kennedy, president of the New Jersey-based Hoop Group, remembers those days and says, "He was such a gifted athlete, but also had a high skill level and a presence about him on the court. He had that since a young age and that's rare. Tyus is a natural star."

While colleges expressed interest, Battle was busy picking a high school. He and his dad visited St. Joseph's Metuchen, where Andrew Bynum and Jay Williams attended; Blair Academy, the old home of Luol Deng, Charlie Villanueva and Royal Ivey; and Roselle Catholic, a budding power that's been hauling in talent in recent years.

They also took a 40-mile drive east. Jersey City, sandwiched between Newark and Manhattan, has long been considered a blighted, delinquent outpost hunkered in New York City's long shadow. That's until recently, when urban redevelopment took the form of condos and bistros.

It's also home to a single brick building housing perhaps the most famous and successful high school basketball program in America. St. Anthony High School is where Bob Hurley Sr., a 2010 Naismith Hall of Fame inductee, has won 27 state championships, four national championships and posted seven undefeated seasons. He's produced over 150 college scholarship players and been the subject of both books and documentaries, both for his wins and his refusal to allow the fledgling, cash-strapped Catholic school to close its doors.

St. Anthony is the Duke of high school basketball, just without the endowment.

So Gary and Tyus Battle visited and considered St. Anthony. The opportunity was there -- Battle could try to become Hurley's fifth McDonald's All-American since 2002. Being "the next one" at St. Anthony is akin to canonization in Jersey.

But St. Joseph Metuchen, roughly 5 miles from the Battle's home, also had appeal and a basketball pedigree.

Then a friend of Gary Battle asked if he knew about tiny Gill St. Bernard's High School in Gladstone, New Jersey, about 40 miles northwest of their home.

"It's kind of like ... I'm not going to lie, it's kind of the middle of nowhere," Tyus says today. "I don't even know if a lot of people know about it. There are acres and acres of land."

Seventy-nine, to be exact. Ranked among the best private schools in New Jersey -- a state teeming with sprawling, ivy-covered prep schools -- Gill St. Bernard's sits on a 17-building, college-style campus housing 700 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. The numbers: 100 percent of graduates attend college, $32,900 annually for upper school tuition, zero state basketball championships. There aren't famous basketball alums, but the United States Equestrian Team trains nearby, and deer, foxes and pheasants roam the countryside.

Also, it's not pronounced, "bur-NARD," but BEHR-nard."

So seeing Gill St. Bernard's for the first time, the Battles didn't quite know what to make of it. What they saw, though, was an elite, college-level curriculum and a basketball team that needed Tyus. In 2011-12, the Knights shook off decades of anonymity by riding three future Division I players to a state runner-up finish, a 28-4 record and a spot in the USA Today High School Top 25.

That's when Tyus Battle visited and, after choosing between Gill St. Bernard's and St. Joseph Metuchen, decided he'd attend the private school he'd never heard of.

Gary Battle still laughs: "People were shocked, man. Just shocked." None more than Mergin Sina. According to Gary, the Gill St. Bernard's coach made no actual effort to land the best prospect in the state. "Some high school coaches say they don't recruit kids," Gary said. "But he literally did not recruit Tyus."

For Sina, it was a landmark in a program building process that included his own son, Jaren, growing into a top-100 recruit in 2013 and scoring 2,146 career points.

"We're not St. Anthony's. We're not St. Pat's. We're the next best thing and that's OK," Mergin Sina said. "Tyus came here to make a mark on this program and that's the mentality of the kid."

Battle went on to average 12.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.0 assists as a freshman.

Despite playing part of his sophomore season with a broken wrist, he averaged 22.5 points per game and was a member of the 2014 USA U17 world championship team that won a FIBA gold medal.

His junior year was limited to nine outings and 16.9 points per game, thanks to a hampering foot injury.

RELATED: Michigan commit Tyus Battle eyeing return from foot injury, hoping to make United States U19 team

"Really, people weren't only surprised that Tyus went to Gill, but they were surprised he stayed there," said Jay Gomes, editor of NJHoops.com, and knower of all thing Jersey basketball. "That is just as rare nowadays."

It's the result of what Hurley Sr. calls "outside people." The glare of youth basketball's dark side has long profiled many rising stars, especially in New Jersey.

"These young guys have everyone in their ear, pulling them every direction and telling them not what's best for the player, but what's best for themselves," Hurley said. "It's hard for these young guys to know what to believe; where to go."

Gary Battle was an All-American at the University of New Haven in 1990. He's spent his life around the game, ran his own youth program and knows the dark alleys. When it came to Tyus, he looked for a trifold of influence: books, ball and no BS. The theory went that as long as that was the foundation, Tyus could make his own decisions.

That's why Tyus was handed the keys for the college recruiting process.

Tyus Battle in the 2014 USA Basketball Men's U17 World Championships.

And he again went where no one expected.

"Yep, everyone was shocked, just like the last time," Gary Battle said.

Michigan has not traditionally pulled players from North Jersey's fertile hoops hotbed. Only 19 players in the program's 99-year history have come from the Garden State. The most recent was Josh Moore, a 7-foot-2 center from Newark who lasted 29 games through 2001 and 2002 before being dismissed for academic reasons.

Through Battle's recruitment, U-M was in the race, but considered an also-ran. It was an afterthought when he visited Ann Arbor last June for the Wolverines' College Practice Camp and landed an expected scholarship offer.

Then in February, Battle narrowed his list of suitors to Louisville, Connecticut, Syracuse, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Duke, the perceived leader. That announcement cut Kentucky, Florida, Villanova and Virginia from his list.

Michigan coach John Beilein stuck with it all along, traveling to New Jersey for games and tailing Battle's AAU team.

When the time came for Battle's official visit three weekends ago, Tyus had no intentions of committing. He had just taken visits to Duke and Louisville, and was scheduled to make return trips to UConn and Syracuse.

Knowing as much, Michigan coaches weren't particularly confident, even as the early-May visit went well. According to Gary Battle, while at a local restaurant that Friday night with assistants Bacari Alexander and LeVall Jordan, Alexander leaned over and noted, "There's no chance Tyus will ever pick Michigan."

"They, like everyone else, figured Duke or Syracuse," Gary now says.

They figured wrong. During the visit, Battle clicked with U-M players from similar backgrounds and saw an offensive system tailor-made for his skill set. Then there was the pitchman.

"Man, him and Beilein, they were like, arm-in-arm," Gary Battle said. "It was obvious that Beilein really liked him as a person."

So returning to Edison that Sunday, Tyus Battle decided to get it all over with. He says the Michigan winters and being far from home are the "sacrifices" that come with "finding the perfect fit."

"High-level basketball players, we have to grow up faster than normal kids our age," he added. "The responsibilities change. I think we mature faster as people. It's been a learning experience that's helped me."

With one year of high school remaining, Battle could face another decision. His younger brother, Khalif, is one of Jersey's "next ones." A skilled 6-foot-2 guard, he'll be starting high school next year and the Battle's are considering where to send him. St. Gill Bernard's is an option, but so is St. Joseph's Metuchen, the nearby school that just produced Karl-Anthony Towns.

Tyus Battle doesn't want to leave St. Gill Bernard's, but says he'll "see what (Khalif) does and make a decision off that." The two will be in school together next year, be it at St. Joseph's or St. Gill Bernard's.

One way or the other, Tyus will have another decision on the plate.

"There was a lot of pressure," he said, "and there still is pressure."

That's what comes with choosing a path of your own, especially in the case of Tyus Battle.

Brendan F. Quinn covers University of Michigan basketball and football. Follow him on Twitter for the latest on Wolverines hoops. He can be contacted at bquinn@mlive.com