UNC Basketball: Keeping It Heel predicts Kerwin Walton commitment

Will Roy Williams and the UNC basketball program get a commitment from 4-star shooting guard Kerwin Walton? Keeping It Heel casts its vote just hours ahead of the big announcement.

Going into the weekend, Kerwin Walton remains one of the nation’s top uncommitted prospects in the class of 2020. That’ll come to an end on Saturday when Walton announces his long-awaited college decision, one that comes down to Arizona, Creighton, Georgetown, Minnesota, North Carolina and Vanderbilt.

To this point, nobody seems to have a real good feel for what direction Walton is leaning, if any at all. That doesn’t mean that the recruiting analysts over at Rivals haven’t cast their votes for Walton’s likely future destination. 80 percent of them have pegged North Carolina as Walton’s eventual landing spot in the Rivals FutureCast. Recruiting analysts from 247Sports, however, have remained uncharacteristically quiet on Walton’s recruitment; his Crystal Ball still void any predictions on the day of his commitment.

And what does Keeping It Heel think about Walton’s recruitment, and where he’ll play college hoops for the foreseeable future? Well, let’s examine that just a little bit closer.

Walton announced his decision date just a couple of days after former Tar Heel reserve Brandon Huffman announced his intent to leave the school via the NCAA transfer portal. Huffman’s departure opened up an available scholarship on North Carolina’s 2020-21 roster, making a commitment to the school that much easier for Walton. Was the timing of Walton’s announcement pure coincidence?

Another factor to think about is available playing time for Walton in Chapel Hill, and potential fit with the Tar Heels. It’s a safe assumption that Walton’s other finalists have used negative recruiting tactics against the Tar Heels as it relates to those two things, making their case to the top-100 prospect that he simply wouldn’t see much time on the court at North Carolina next season. While the argument makes sense — given that Roy Williams has already secured the nation’s No. 3-ranked recruiting class for 2020 — it may not be as open and shut as they likely made it out to be.

North Carolina was the worst three-point shooting version of itself in the history of the program last season. Without an elite pure long-distance shooter on the roster last season, the Tar Heels struggled to look anything close to competent from beyond the arc. That’s where Walton could come in and make an immediate impact for Williams and the Tar Heels. As good as their recruiting class is, it’s very heavy on guards and big men. The only place that Williams came up short with this year’s recruiting class is on the wing, where he’s struggled to snag elite players over the past two years.

A junior Leaky Black is the likely starter for Williams at the three-spot, and the Tar Heels did get a commitment from top-50 small forward Puff Johnson this year. Black will have to make a big jump offensively to give the Tar Heels the kind of production they’d like to have on the wing, and Johnson may not be ready for that big of a role in his freshman season. If Walton could come in off the UNC bench and knock down shots from the perimeter, he could carve out a really nice space for himself in the coming season, and the ones moving forward. The fact is, Walton would arguably be the best shooter on the Tar Heels’ roster next season, and value like that could put him on the court often, and in crucial situations.

So where will Walton commit to when he announces his decision on Saturday? It’s my belief that Georgetown, Minnesota and Vanderbilt are more than likely on the outside looking in, and it’s Arizona, Creighton and North Carolina that have the best chance to land the 4-star sharpshooter. And as quiet as Walton has kept his recruitment, I think North Carolina has been subtly picking up momentum over the past several months, and in the last few weeks specifically. With that said, I think it’s North Carolina that will pick up Walton’s recruitment when it’s all said and done, and Roy Williams will boast one of his best recruiting classes in better than 30 seasons as a head coach.

Stick with Keeping It Heel as we await the decision of Kerwin Walton today, and, of course, everything UNC basketball.