South Carolina men's basketball lands four-star Class of 2025 recruit EJ Walker

COLUMBIA — South Carolina men's basketball on Friday secured the commitment of four-star power forward EJ Walker, the No. 2 recruit from the state of Kentucky.

Walker, who announced his decision on social media, chose South Carolina over Wisconsin, Purdue and Ohio State.

The 6-foot-8 Class of 2025 recruit plays at Lloyd Memorial High School in Kentucky, where he averaged 16.9 points and 11 rebounds last season. Walker has 1,322 career points and is 267 points away from becoming the school's all-time leading scorer.

“I’m really excited to be a Gamecock,” Walker told On3 GamecockCentral. “And really what made me choose South Carolina was just we built a good relationship with Coach (Lamont) Paris."

On3 reported that Walker visited in March and loved Columbia and the school's campus. Walker also expressed how easy it was to talk with Paris.

"And like, it didn’t feel like we had to have forced conversation when we had a conversation," Walker said. "He’s just really cool and it just makes it easy to talk to him . . . He does fun stuff and he knows a lot, too.”

TRANSFER PORTAL: South Carolina men's basketball 2024 transfer tracker: Updates on Lamont Paris' roster

Lulu Kesin covers South Carolina athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email her at lkesin@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @Lulukesin

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: South Carolina men's basketball lands 4-star 2025 recruit EJ Walker