Lonnie Walker, a 6-foot-5 wing from Reading, Pa., and Team Final, cut his list to five schools on Thursday.
Walker’s list consists of Kentucky, Arizona, Syracuse, Villanova and Miami.
My official top fivehttps://t.co/hnfaJ46BIh
— G.C.M (@lonniewalker_4) August 25, 2016
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Kentucky offered the shooting guard out in early May.
“It’s usually the assistant coach [Kenny Payne] telling me that Coach [John] Calipari wants to talk to me over the phone,” Walker told me this summer. “And we chat just a few minutes, not even about basketball, we’re just trying to grow a little bond between us. He usually tells me how much he appreciates my game and the type of person I am.”
He added: “It means a lot. It shows how you are among the elite talent.”
Reigning NCAA champion Villanova is currently the leader in Walker’s Crystal Ball on 247 Sports.
“We usually don’t talk about basketball that much,” he said. “I really have a great bond with Coach Jay Wright himself. He’s been since Day One. He’s literally one of the first schools to offer me, and he is still here stronger than anyone else most likely. They’re still recruiting me like I’m a new player or something, they still really like my game.”
Syracuse is also in the mix.
“It means a lot,” he said. “Jim Boeheim came to my school a few times. I talked to him, and I have a very close bond with the assistant coach Gerry McNamara so it’s definitely a blessing to have Syracuse around, talking to you.”
The Reading native most recently picked up an offer from Arizona, and he says that the offer is very significant.
“It would mean a lot,” Walker told SNY.tv in a previous interview. “Coach [Sean] Miller is a great coach, he’s had a lot of great players come through. That offer means a lot.”
He also mentioned that Miami’s Jim Larranaga is a great coach.
“It’s a lot of different perspectives on certain schools and a lot of different factors that I like about certain schools,” he said.
Walker hopes to decide sometime this fall.
“I’ll take my visits hopefully in October or November,” he said this summer, “and hopefully I’ll make my decision either before the season or right after the season to get it out of the way.”
