UNC Basketball: 4-star 2020 guard Kerwin Walton announces he has a UNC offer

For the last several months on the recruiting cycle, Roy Williams has been on the trail and prioritizing players he’s already offered, especially for players who might have fall commitments (Cade Cunningham, we’re waiting). So this comes as a bit of a surprise: Kerwin Walton, a guard from Minnesota ranked #96 in the country, told InsideCarolina on Tuesday night that he has an offer from Roy Williams and UNC Basketball.

This isn’t quite along the lines of some of the surprise offers we’ve seen from Williams this cycle, like Bryce Thompson, who got an offer from Steve Robinson after limited contact with the head coach, or some of the others we’ve seen where Williams extended an offer after seeing a player play without much personal contact at all. Walton attends the same high school as Zeke Nnaji, whom Williams put a lot of effort into in a short time for the 2019 class before he chose Arizona, so there’s some familiarity and a connection that goes back approximately 10 months. However, it’s still fairly out of the blue, especially after the numerous in-home visits the UNC head coach had been conducting over the past week.

Moving to the player himself, Walton is primarily known as a catch-and-shoot sniper, according to 247’s National Recruiting Analyst Brian Snow:

“Kerwin Walton is a tremendous catch and shoot guy... He can catch and shoot both when stationary [and] on the move. Also, Walton does a pretty good of moving without the basketball and getting open by using screens, despite not being super athletic or quick.”

He’s got solid size for an off-ball guard in high school, measuring 6’4, 170 with the promise that he will grow into that body in college much the way Kenny Williams did. He shares a few similarities with Williams, honestly, and I’m not just making this up because they have the same initials (though that is a nice coincidence). Williams had a little more muscle on him as a high schooler and was known as much for his defense as for his shooting, in contrast to Walton whose primary calling card is his shooting versatility, but they both have prototype builds for a UNC shooting guard, unorthodox shooting motions for the modern game, and do their best work off-ball. He’s rising up the ranks after an impressive summer, including a 10-13 distance shooting performance in front of the UNC coaching staff. That led to him picking up offers from programs like Kansas, Arizona, Iowa State, and his hometown Minnesota. Here’s a highlight tape:

We will monitor the situation and keep you posted about this latest addition to UNC’s 2020 recruiting journey!