Six questions to be answered at USA Basketball fall minicamp

This weekend, USA Basketball’s annual fall minicamp tips off at the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs. The format features 15 of the country’s top seniors competing with 40 or so of the top freshmen and sophomores. It is a great opportunity to see young talent tangle with established players and perhaps even more importantly there will be a lot of insight to be had on the recruiting futures of many national powers.

In preparation, we take a look at a six pack of questions we’ll be looking to answer over the weekend.

RANKINGS: 2017 Rivals150 | 2017 team rankings | 2018 Rivals150 | 2019 top 50

Ranked No. 2 nationally, Washington-bound Michael Porter Jr. from Seattle (Wash.) Nathan Hale is scheduled to be the highest-ranked player in attendance. The question is whether or not the 6-foot-8 small forward can catch and pass Arizona-bound center DeAndre Ayton for the top spot.

A native of the Bahamas, Ayton isn’t eligible for USA Basketball so he won’t be there but it will be the first of a handful of opportunities for Porter to make his case for the top spot in the final 2017 Rivals150 next spring.

Athletic, skilled and with outstanding size for the wing, a big-time outing in Colorado Springs could help Porter further close what is a very small gap between himself and Ayton for the top spot.

Five of 2017’s top seven point guards are scheduled to be in attendance and it just so happens that Trevon Duval (No. 3), Collin Sexton (No. 7), Trae Young (No. 14), Quade Green (No. 23) and Matt Coleman (No. 32) are also the five highest-ranked point guards who haven’t committed.

Essentially, those five guys are the base to a gigantic house of recruiting cards and their decisions are likely to have direct impacts on each others.

Duval is wide open, recently announcing that he’s re-starting his recruiting process, and just finished an unofficial visit to Kansas. He also is one whose name gets tossed around as a potential candidate to explore overseas options. Sexton just finished an official visit to Kansas himself and has also seen Alabama, Georgia Tech, N.C. State and Oklahoma State. His decision is likely coming within the next few weeks and appears to be a race between the Jayhawks and Crimson Tide.

The best shooter of the group, Young also has Kansas in his finalists along with Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Washington. His only remaining visits are UK and KU and he’s not expected to decide until sometime during the winter. Green has reportedly been leaning to Syracuse of late, but he’ll see Kentucky in another week and also has Duke in the mix. Then there’s Coleman who looked like a strong lock for Texas before taking visits to Duke and Stanford in advance of his official visit to Austin on the final weekend of October.

As fun as it will be to watch these guys battle it out on the floor, figuring out where they will each end up may be even more fun.

Given that he’s ranked No. 20 overall, five-star shooting guard Lonnie Walker has had one of the quietest recruitments for an elite player in some time.

The 6-foot-5 scorer from Reading (Pa.) High did go to Miami last weekend but he’s yet to announce visit dates for Arizona, Kentucky, Syracuse or Villanova.

Walker is an impact scorer at the next level and after looking to be an early lock for the defending national champions it’s become apparent that he’s legitimately open. He’s a potential freshman starter for any of his finalists so needless to say any clues to his recruitment will be scrutinized.

Each year, Kentucky reels in either the No. 1 or No. 2 class in the country and odds are the Wildcats will eventually end up with an elite 2017 recruiting class. However, to date, they are the only blueblood program that hasn’t yet scratched in the senior class. Could No. 17 overall P.J. Washington be the first to give the Wildcats the nod?

The 6-foot-7 combo forward from Henderson (Nev.) Findlay Prep has been rumored to be a lean to John Calipari and the Wildcats for a while now. He visited Lexington officially in September and he also saw North Carolina and still has visits to Arizona (Oct. 21) and Texas (Oct. 28). The question is, would he be willing to commit without taking those extra visits?

If he is, Kentucky would appear to be in a strong spot. We’ll find out more this weekend.

Not many package deals come to fruition, but Duke has had some luck with them. The Jahlil Okafor/Tyus Jones package deal delivered the Blue Devils a national championship in 2015 and they are hoping that a package of big man Wendell Carter (No. 5) and shooting guard Gary Trent (No. 13) can do the same for them in 2017.

Carter has already visited Harvard officially and also has Georgia and Georgia Tech on his list while Trent has visited UCLA with Michigan State on his list. However, the one school they have in common is Duke and they are both scheduled to be on campus for official visits the Oct. 22.

Carter has another visit (Georgia Tech) after the Duke date but as recruitments are winding down the Blue Devils are looking like heavy favorites. The question is whether either Carter or Trent will cop to a Duke lean.

The underclass talent on hand for USA Basketball is impressive as well with 10 of 2019’s five-star prospects expected, including shooting guard Scottie Lewis (No. 4), power forward Matthew Hurt (No. 5), point guard Cole Anthony (No. 6), power forward Vernon Carey (No. 8), forward Trendon Watford (No. 9) and power forward James Wiseman (No. 10).

Each year, the minicamp has served as the launching pad for many freshmen and sophomores to ascend to recruiting stardom. So who will it be this year?

Some possibilities from the class of 2020 include forward Isaiah Todd, forward Greg Brown and shooting guard R.J. Hampton.