UNC Basketball: The latest on 4-star wing Puff Johnson

The latest on 4-star small forward and UNC basketball target Donovan “Puff” Johnson

With one of their best recruiting classes in better than a decade already in tow, the North Carolina Tar Heels are still looking to sign a couple more prospects from the class of 2020.

A handful of players remain on the Tar Heels’ recruiting board, including top-10 wing Ziaire Williams and 5-star shooting guard Bryce Thompson. Also in the mix are 4-star prospects Puff Johnson and Kerwin Walton.

Johnson, in particular, has a visit to Chapel Hill scheduled for this weekend. The Tar Heels will look to reel in the younger brother of Cameron Johnson, who had a terrific two-year stretch at North Carolina after transferring from Pittsburgh.

The 6-foot-7, 185-pound small forward out of Hillcrest Prep in Phoenix, Arizona was ranked 198th in the nation in September of 2018. He jumped 77 spots that month to No. 121, and another 73 spots in the months since, landing him at No. 48 in the most recent 247Sports Composite. He’s now the No. 13 small forward in the class, and the fourth-ranked prospect in the state of Arizona.

It seemed for a while as if Pitt and Arizona had the advantage in Johnson’s recruitment, but as Rivals recruiting analyst Corey Evans notes, the Tar Heels may be in a much better position than we initially thought.

"“. . . Yes, Arizona is the leader and Johnson’s official visit earlier this fall could not have gone any better,” Evans writes. “The four-star will play his senior year alongside Arizona commit Dalen Terry and he has a strong relationship with Miller. That’s all very positive for the Wildcats, but there are two other programs that cannot be discounted, either.This weekend, Johnson will head to North Carolina, where his older brother found great success. He could also visit Pitt in the coming weeks before signing during the Early Signing Period.Could the allure of playing for a blue blood and Roy Williams win out for Johnson? What about returning home and being one of the catalysts of change for Jeff Capel’s program? We should find out in the next two weeks, but keep an eye on the Tar Heels as North Carolina is in a much better spot than previously believed.”"

With North Carolina already hot on the heels of its competition for Johnson, and a visit coming In the next few days, could Roy Williams and the Tar Heels push the talented wing to a commitment before any other official visits are made? Can they overcome the work that Sean Miller and the Wildcats have done to this point?

Johnson’s recruitment has been pretty quiet over the past few months, and nobody seems sure enough to definitively say where he’ll end up. With that it mind, it stands to reason that a good visit this weekend to one of college basketball’s most storied programs could turn the tide in Johnson’s recruitment.

For more on the Tar Heels’ pursuit of Donovan Johnson and everything UNC basketball, check back with Keeping It Heel.