josiah johnson to ucla 2/25/00

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Josiah Johnson At UCLA
This Weekend--(Feb. 25, 2000)

While the rest of the teams in CIF Playoffs are either celebrating or licking their wounds, some of this year's crop of seniors who are no longer involved in the playoffs are making plans for the next level, or at least they're out looking at the colleges they'll be attending and the colleges are checking out the unsigned available talent. We haven't actually featured a bona fide recruiting tidbit in a long time, but last night we got a few e-mails of a recruiting nature, and one of them involved Josiah Johnson (6'-8" Sr. PF/SG) from Montclair Prep, whose high school career closed out a week ago when Montclair lost to Buckley in the second round of the Division V-AA playoffs.

According to our sources, Josiah will be taking an official visit to UCLA this weekend. The schedule was for Josiah to be picked up from his home at 11:30 a.m. this morning for the short trip to UCLA, where he'll spend the weekend.

The UCLA coaches have been watching him for the last few weeks and the word is that the coaches believe that he's got tremendous upside potential. He's got a very smooth stroke, is a good outside shooter and if he can develop the quickness that he'll need at the Pac-10 level to get his shot off could be an impact player in a year or two. The current Bruin coaching staff are betting that Josiah, like his brother Kris, who was recruited at UCLA 4th in his class (behind Omma Givens, JR Henderson, and Toby Bailey) and his father before him, NBA star and UCLA jersey-retiree Marques Johnson (who was also recruited after Richard Washington, Gavin Smith and Jim Spillane), will also be a late-bloomer.

We've heard that Josiah will probably receive an offer this weekend, and if he does, look for him to give the Bruins a verbal. Josiah is also being recruited by Northwestern, and several other D-I programs, but given the family connection and the history with the UCLA program, if the Bruins offer, we doubt he'd turn it down.