Five-star 2014 recruit Justise Winslow visited Duke this weekend while the annual K Academy went out with a host of current and former Duke basketball players in town.
Really enjoyed the time I got to spend in Durham this past weekend. K Academy was fun. Happy to be back in houston though.
— Justise Winslow (@Chief_Justise) June 2, 2013
Though visiting during the summer doesn't always do a school justice (get it?), can you think of a better time to visit than during the K Academy, when not only current players are in town, but also guys like Kyrie Irving, Gerald Henderson, Mike Dunleavy, just to name a few?
Winslow, a 6-foot-5 small forward and the No. 10 player in the class of 2014 according to ESPN, is still considering 10 schools: Arizona, Baylor, Duke, Florida, Houston, Kansas, North Carolina, Stanford, Texas A&M and UCLA. Winslow went to UCLA after visiting Duke Sunday.
If you're a VIP at BlueDevilLair (you can get a free trial for the summer), you can read a great Q&A with Winslow.
Winslow is close friends with Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones, the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the class of 2014.
Okafor and Jones have regularly stated their intention to play college ball together, and it's possible Winslow joins that crew.
Last week, Okafor trimmed his list to eight schools while Jones' list is down to seven.
ESPN Insider recruiting analyst Dave Telep has a good breakdown of the three and their lists of schools.
Baylor, Duke and Kansas are the only three schools on all three lists. Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio State made Okafor and Jones' but not Winslow's.
Telep adds, "A reasonable assumption could be formed that if the trio went together, you could handicap the race with Duke in the lead, Kansas in the No. 2 spot and Baylor third."
If you want to read more from Okafor, he expanded on his list on his USA Today blog. He says a bunch of interesting things in the post, but one thing potentially worth noting is that he talks about how much he loves North Carolina despite leaving it off his list:
Obviously, I've left a lot of quality schools off my list.To be honest, I didn't want to make a list because I knew it would be impossible with all the great schools recruiting me. But I knew it was something I had to do.
Like North Carolina; they were my favorite school growing up but I had to cut them.
I pretty much knew in my mind that I wasn't going there. They were recruiting me pretty hard but they backed off of me a little with them getting a great point guard in Joel (Berry) and everyone knowing that me and Tyus (Jones) are playing together in college.
I guess they felt like that wasn't gonna happen. But I still love North Carolina.
Looking ahead to the class of 2015, a name to keep an eye out on could be power forward Elijah Thomas, currently the No. 6 player in the class. At 6-foot-9 and 230 pounds, Thomas has the tools to develop into an elite post player.
Spoke with talented 2015 big man Elijah Thomas. Says he definitely wants to visit Duke soon.
— Varand Khachadouri (@VarandK) June 2, 2013
He has offers from a number of top programs, though Duke has not yet issued any 2015 offers yet.
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