Villanova basketball recruiting: 2017 four-star small forward Jermaine Samuels commits to the Wildcats

The Villanova Wildcats have been hot on the recruiting trail lately and have certainly been reaping the obvious benefits of winning a National Championship as they did earlier this year in April. Those benefits seeped through Saturday afternoon when the ‘Cats picked up a verbal commit from a Top 50 player in the Class of 2017.

Jermaine Samuels of Weston, Massachusetts has decided to commit to Jay Wright and Villanova University. Samuels had high-major blue bloods gunning for his services, as Duke, Kansas, and Indiana among others were in the hunt as well as fellow Big East rep Georgetown. In the end, Samuels has decided that Villanova is the place for him.

Future150 raves about Samuels’ athleticism, agility, high motor, versatility and his ability to finish through contact noting them as strengths on his player page while shooting appears to be something of a weakness for him to this point, but he certainly has the prospects to prosper and will certainly get plenty of tutelage and instruction under head coach Jay Wright when he arrives on campus next year.

Samuels is a highly touted prospect across the board. He ranks 44th in 247Sports’ Composite Rankings in the 2017 class. In addition, he checks in at ninth at his position, and the second-best player in the state of Massachusetts behind Makai Ashton-Langford, a point guard who will soon be deciding between UConn and Providence for his school of choice.

Jermaine Samuels is the second player to commit to Villanova from the 2017 class as he joins Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree of Philadelphia. Villanova’s class is now third-best in the Big East and 12th-best in the nation after Samuels’ commitment Saturday afternoon.