Recently thought to be favoring the Florida Gators, four-star power forward Brice Johnson (Cordova, SC) surprised some Wednesday morning by committing to play for the North Carolina Tar Heels in 2012.
Johnson, who visited Florida in early October and also had N.C. State and Clemson in his final four, is the No. 49 player nationally according to Rivals.
He is the second player in as many months to have the Gators in his final four but pass them over in order to play for another top program. Five-star point guard Kyle Anderson (Jersey City, NJ), picked UCLA over Florida in September.
The Gators already have three commitments for 2012 including four-stars PG Braxton Ogbueze (Charlotte, NC) and shooting guard Michael Frazier (Montverde, FL) as well as three-star SG Dillon Graham (Orlando, FL). Florida would like to add a frontcourt player before closing out the recruiting class.
This class is going downhill FAST
Really? We have two 4-star guards and are still in the hunt for several top of the line big men. Take a step back from the ledge.
umm.. do a little more research. Both our 4-star guards have been declining in stock since they have committed. I personally think Braxton is great talent, but the others haven’t impressed anyone lately. This was supposed to be a class where we stocked up on bigs and the expectation was that we would end up being a top 5 class. We will probably end up picking up a few more frontcourt “projects”, which isn’t THAT bad considering Donovan’s resume, but we were expected to bring in Chandler Parsons and Patric Young level talent. This isn’t the first big we have lost out on
Parsons wasn’t high-level talent upon committing. Young is in a different league than he was from a recruiting standpoint.
Um, and as much I hate to say it Florida is not spurned if the recruit goes to UNC. We are spurned when they go to NC State. As much as the two national championships make us think otherwise, Florida is an upper mid level program in terms of respectability. We simply are not on the elite level of Duke, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA yet. That day may come but we are not there yet.
When a school is a favorite to land a kid and something changes last minute, it applies. It’s not indicative of the quality of team that he picked just moreso how it happened.
wow, UNC out of the blue. he himself stated just a couple of weeks ago that it was between NCSU and UF.
I don’t think we will win many games playing a 5 guard lineup.
Adam, are we screwed if Young leaves and BD hasn’t brought in any respectable bigs in this class and do you think Brissett still plays on this team?
Don’t think Young will leave but yes, Donovan needs to get some bigs in here. No, I don’t think Brissett plays.