North Carolina Basketball: UNC offers `14 small forward Justise Winslow

According to Inside Carolina after head coach Roy Williams, who turns 62 today, watched lefty Justise Winslow, from St John’s HS in Houston, Tx, at both the Peach Jam and then, a week later, the Las Vegas Classic, the head man of the North Carolina basketball program extended the 2014 small forward a scholarship. From the looks of it the 6’6″/210 lbs forward has close to twenty programs looking for his service, including teams such as Florida, Georgetown, Kansas, Kentucky, Texas, UCLA and Villanova as well as arch rival Duke. From reading around the internet, several sites stated that the young man took an unofficial visit to Chapel hill in the middle of February.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CNZuSssf2U&w=640&h=360] 

The four major recruiting sites all have Justise Winslow as a five star recruit. At Scout.com has him as the second best at the small forward position. While at Rivals.com they have him as the eighth best national player in the 2014 class. As far as ESPN they believe the young man is 11th best player for `14, while being third at his position for the class and third in the state of Texas. And finally, at the newest of the recruiting sites, 247 Sports, they see the 6’6″ young man as the fifth best in the country, third at his position and second at in lone star state.

Theo Pinson taken a big step forward this week. Having fun and playing with instincts. Justise Winslow game laced with talent. #eybl

— Dave Telep (@DaveTelep) July 21, 2012

Without a doubt Winslow has the talent and explosion to be a force at the rim on both side of the ball. He is also very good with his dribble and his basketball IQ is above average, who is going to make everyone on the court with him just that much better. The one thing that the young man needs to work on his medium range jump shot, but with work on his fundamentals there is not one reason why the young man can not be one of the best in his class for any of the schools that are recruiting him. To be said is that he still has plenty of time to develop all of this while playing both in high school and with his AAU team, the Houston Hoops.

While it seems that Winslow is definitely going to be a very good player at the next level I have to wonder with the Carolina coaching staff also chasing the best playing in the country, Andrew Wiggins, for 2014 who is also a small forward makes me wonder if UNC knows more than most do about the young man reclassifying to 2013. I am not sure when Wiggins will make a decision about moving up or staying with his class, but until then all the major programs have to make moves unknowing what the future will bring when it comes to the top player of the class of `14.

In the end this is another great player that could be part of the North Carolina basketball family, but the 2014 class is still a long, long way away in my opinion and the class before that one is still a work in progress, especially with Wiggins’ future still looming. On the other hand this is how the landscape of college basketball is shaping up, where coaches in high level programs like Carolina have to look a lot further ahead than the following year. As usual, for more about recruiting on this young man or anyone else, make sure to come check out isportsweb!