What Does Late-Signee Three-Star Michael Wynn Bring to the Table for Danny Manning and Wake Forest?

In what was a pretty big surprise to most Wake Forest fans, head coach Danny Manning secured a fifth player for the class of 2018 last week when 6-6 three-star wing Mike Wynn committed to the Demon Deacons.

It was a quick turnaround for Wynn, who committed on Wednesday, and according to Les Johns, was supposed to be in class at Wake on Friday, and was expected to workout with the team yesterday.

However, Manning had been in touch with Wynn for quite some time and established a relationship with him over the past few months.

This is the second late addition in the past month for the Wake Forest basketball team, with Andrien White, a transfer from Charlotte, also joining the team. That news was first reported in early June, but was officially released earlier this month.

Wynn is a 6-foot-6, 200 pound wing/forward out of Liberty Heights Athletic Institute, a post-grad school in Charlotte. His relationship with White is a big part of what got him to Wake in the first place according to Wynn’s interview with Johns.

He was originally committed to East Carolina, and actually signed a National Letter of Intent with the Pirates before asking out of it, and eventually being granted his release by new head coach Joe Dooley.

From there he opened up his recruitment and received interest from Wichita State, South Florida, Massachusetts, and of course, Wake Forest. He is the 416th ranked recruit in the 2018 class, and 25th in North Carolina according to 247Sports.

I haven’t seen a lot of game tape on him or a lot of film, but he seems to be a fluid athlete who can get to the basket fairly well. At 6-6 I would expect him to be able to take full advantage of the strength and conditioning of Ryan Horn and add plenty of muscle to his frame to get up to par with what he will see in the ACC.

I don’t know what to expect from him this year, but if he can score the ball at all three levels as he indicated, then there may be some minutes for him at the 3 or the 4.

It’s hard to speculate on the playing time for anybody outside of the known commodities in Brandon Childress, Chaundee Brown, and Olivier Sarr, but it’s especially difficult for somebody like Wynn, who is a late commit and has been at Liberty Heights.

Looking at the big picture a bit, taking guys late in the recruiting cycle is always a bit of a gamble. In this case, Wynn was committed to another school, signed, and opted out late, but most of the time these types of players are still available for a reason.

It is reassuring that Gregg Marshall and Pat Kelsey were willing to offer a scholarship, but when a gamble can tie up a scholarship for four years that can often be dicey.

Given where Wake is with their scholarship chart, in that even with Wynn signed there is still a spot open for this class (assuming Christian Lorng doesn’t make it to campus), it’s not that big of an issue in this situation in my opinion. This is especially true considering the constant state of turmoil and turnover this roster has experienced over the past few years.

Overall I am not a big fan of Wake getting involved and bringing in guys this late, however I think this is the rare case where signing Wynn isn’t really that risky and the alternative was fielding 11 scholarship players.

Hopefully Wynn comes in and shows that he can be a dynamic scorer off the bench and Manning and the staff stole one. Time will tell on this, but for now I am completely fine with the decision to go ahead and take a late signee, and look forward to see what we get out of Wynn.