By SAM LANCE
KANSAS CITY — A few months ago, top-60 prospect Joshua Lewis became the highest-rated recruit in USF program history. And when the 6-foot-6, 170-pound wing gets to campus, he said the coaching staff has big aspirations for him.
“I’m going to be in a big role from the jump,” Lewis told ZAGSBLOG. “I’m going to have the ball in my hands a lot. I’m going to be in the position to make reads, be able to run the offense a little bit. So I’m excited.”
Lewis took an official visit to UCF in early May, and that sealed the deal on his recruitment. Head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim was the first coach to reach out to Lewis last June, and the relationship has built over time.
“He’s been talking to me almost every week ever since,” Lewis said. “That’s really the main reason I committed there so early.”
Lewis plays the wing and handles the ball sometimes for his AAU team, the Florida Rebels. This past session in Kansas City, Lewis averaged 15.0 points and 9.0 rebounds while shooting 45.9% from the field. He plans on playing a similar role at USF, and will play some point guard.
“They see me as a one through three, so I really like that,” Lewis said. “I think that will be one of the biggest things [Abdur-Rahim] works on with me, making me really positionless and helping me with that.”
Lewis is from the area and attends Blake High School in Tampa (FL). Blake is under a 20 minute drive to USF’s basketball arena the Yuengling Center. Lewis admires what Abdur-Rahim has been able to do for his hometown school and said USF got “snubbed” from the NCAA Tournament last season.
“I feel like they had a great year,” Lewis said. “[Abdur-Rahim] is definitely turning the program around in a really short amount of time. So it’s really cool to see, especially being from the city.”
The wing is ranked the No. 52 overall prospect in the 2025 class by 247Sports and the No. 8 player in the state of Florida.
“I feel like I can do a little bit of everything on the court,” Lewis said. “I feel like the energy I bring to any team is really great, and I feel like I haven’t even tapped into my full potential yet. I feel like in the next few years, I’m going to be one of the top names in college from my class and I’m going to be in the NBA.”
Lewis is recruiting his AAU teammate and class of 2025 prospect CJ Ingram to the Bulls. Ingram is a standout football player and holds an offer from the Florida Gators for his play on the gridiron. He’s reported one basketball offer from Samford, per 247Sports.
“I just talked to coach Amir about him,” Lewis said. “He said he likes his game. So I was talking to CJ about it. That’s really it.”
One interesting fact about Lewis is he loves to fish, especially for large mouth bass.
“Whenever I’m not hooping, that’s probably what I’m doing,” Lewis said. “In Florida there’s some good fishing, a lot of ponds, so I’m always hitting up some new ponds. You know, looking at Google Maps.”
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