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Starting Five: Decision coming for five-star Josiah James

Five-star guard Josiah James, one of the most versatile players in the class of 2019, will be announcing his decision this week. Missouri adds a late piece to their 2018 class, Wichita State lands a scorer and more in this week's edition of national basketball analyst Eric Bossi's Starting Five.

RELATED: Class of 2019 Center rankings | PF | SF | SG | PG

1. JOSIAH JAMES ANNOUNCES THIS WEEK

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Fresh off an official visit to Clemson -- after visiting Tennessee the weekend before -- five-star guard Josiah James is ready to announce his college decision.

The 6-foot-6 senior at Charleston (S.C.) Porter Gaud who ranks No. 14 nationally will announce his commitment at 10:30 am at his high school on Wednesday. What he won't be doing is making a planned official visit to Duke next weekend.

That he's going to announce without officially visiting Duke would appear to be pretty big news. For a while now, the Blue Devils had been seen nationally as the team to beat for James. But, coming off of his Clemson visit the signs are all starting to point in the direction of him staying home to play for the Tigers.

After losing out on Zion Williamson to Duke last year, winning James away from them this year would be huge for Clemson. Can they pull it off? Chances are looking pretty good and we'll know for sure soon enough.

2. MISSOURI ADDS A LATE SIGNEE

You just can't ever know what to expect in recruiting. I certainly didn't expect Missouri to be adding anybody else to their 2018 recruiting class. But there I was Friday night getting a message that 2018 small forward Christian Guess had committed to the Tigers and would enroll Monday morning.

I was able to contact Guess Friday night and he confirmed the news and is expected on campus in Columbia today.

So what's the deal here? Basically, Guess wasn't expected to be a qualifier but the NCAA has approved him, Cuonzo Martin and Missouri had room to take him and classes that he could enroll in and now they've got a new small forward. I haven't seen Guess play, but our Corey Evans has seen plenty of him and he relayed to me that Guess is a big-time athlete who can really get to the rim and has SEC talent.

If he ends up working out, Missouri can really look like geniuses here. If not, there's really not anything lost as they would have otherwise been sitting on an empty roster spot for the 2018-19 season.

3. WICHITA STATE SCORES POINT GUARD

Gregg Marshall and Wichita State landed one of the country's top point guards on Sunday when high scoring Noah Fernandes pledged to the Shockers.

A solid producer for Expressions Elite in Nike's EYBL, Fernandes is a quick and aggressive guard who can score from deep, has some bounce to his game and will compete on both ends.

He joins bouncy power forward DeAntoni Gordon to give the Shockers a nice start to their 2019 recruiting efforts.

4. WASH EMERGES AS HIGH MAJOR TARGET

As schools look to find under the radar talent, more and more attention could be given to shooting guard Damerius Wash. An athletic native of Mississippi, the 6-foot-4 scorer has a chance to really see his recruitment take off.

He had gotten an offer from Georgetown during his senior year but elected to go to prep school at Sunrise Christian and things have picked up. I was able to get Wash's thoughts on three programs that have put in heavy work and who he has plans to visit in the near future, Kansas State, Loyola Marymount and Mississippi.

Kansas State: "I went on an unofficial there and I loved it. The atmosphere is very high energy and when I went to the football game I loved it. The people there were awesome and asking about me and how I was doing and I really liked all of that."

Loyola Marymount: "They've been recruiting me on and off since my eleventh grade year. They have been on me hard and I'm supposed to be taking an official visit out there in a week, so we will see how that goes."

Ole Miss: "I love Ole Miss, it's a very good school and they have a good coach. Coach (Win) Case, the assistant, he's like my buddy and we talk a lot. I have much love for Ole Miss because they offered me early."

Wash says that he's open to other programs getting involved and will use the next few weeks to gauge interest, see how visits go and decide if he wants to sign early or wait until the spring.

5. IS KANSAS MAKING A MOVE ON AN IN-STATE WING?

It looks like Kansas could be making a strong move on in state wing Christian Braun with whom Bill Self completed an in-home visit with on Sunday.

Recently elevated to four-star status after a strong summer, Braun is somebody that Kansas has been spending more time with of late. They had him on campus for an unofficial visit at the end of August and offered, saw him last week and then did yesterday's in home visit. Braun has been to Kansas State officially and has also hosted Bruce Weber and the Wildcats for an in home visit. He currently has visits set with Oklahoma (this weekend) and Illinois (mid October), but the Jayhawks are also planning to have him on campus again for Late Night in the Phog in a few weeks.

The way things are unfolding, it's looking like Kansas may be emerging as the team to beat for Braun.

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