Arizona basketball: Rawle Alkins’ NBA draft decision could impact Cameron Johnson’s future

Johnson will be in Tucson on Friday

Cameron Johnson, the most-coveted grad transfer of the 2017 college basketball offseason, will be visiting Tucson and the Arizona Wildcats on Friday.

Prior to his trip to Tucson, Johnson talked with Scout’s Evan Daniels about what his current thoughts are on his future, and interestingly, the NBA Draft decision of one of the Wildcats heading to the NBA Combine could play a role in where Johnson goes.

“They have a spot with [Rawle] Alkins leaving, if he stays in the draft, obviously,” Johnson told Daniels. “With him leaving they have a spot they need me to fill and there’s a role for me there with the rest of the team there. There’s a spot carved out for me there, that’s their pitch.”

“For example Alkins could back to school or [Hamidou] Diallo could go back to school, although that wouldn’t really affect things,” Johnson says later in the piece. “There are some recruits out there that are still making their minds up. So all of that will factor in.”

It’s obvious that Johnson’s decision will come when more NBA Draft entrants become finalized, though he says he isn’t too sure when he’ll pick a school.

“I will hash things out,” he said. “I don’t know how far I’ll get in the decision-making process because there’s still some moving parts to this with other recruits, players going into the Draft or players that could come back from the Draft. I’m just staying on the lookout for anything that develops.”

Johnson has already visited Kentucky, and will visit UCLA and Oregon sometime next week. He admits that Kentucky and Oregon are intriguing because of the number of players that have left those teams for the draft, while UCLA’s selling point is their style of play.

Arizona is still waiting on the draft decisions from two players; Alkins and Chance Comanche. At this point, it seems more likely that Comanche will leave school than Alkins, but there is certainly a chance that both of them stay, or both of them go.

Johnson is a 6-foot-7 wing who made 41.5 percent of his 188 attempts from 3-point range last year at Pitt. Since he is a grad transfer, he will be eligible to play immediately, but thanks to an injury redshirt year, he has two years of eligibility remaining.

Sean Miller said at an alumni event in Phoenix on Wednesday that he is still looking at adding two more players to next year’s team. It is worth noting that Johnson will be visiting Tucson at the same time as Duke transfer Chase Jeter, though Jeter wouldn’t be eligible this coming season.

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Comfort Level

In Daniels’ story, Johnson also talks about how his dad played with Sean Miller at Pitt back in the day.

“We know him and his family well,” Johnson said of Miller. “I think it mostly comes down to trust factor and familiarity and comfort having him as a coach.”

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