Arizona’s high-profile Class of 2011 guards Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson will have an interested observer during their respective games this weekend — each other.

Turner’s Winston-Salem (N.C.) Quality Education Academy (QEA) team and Johnson’s Henderson (Nev.) Findlay Prep team will compete in the Prime Time Shootout this weekend at Kean University in Union, N.J.

QEA, which is 5-0 since Turner’s transfer there from Sacramento High School last month, will play Burlington (N.J.) Life Center Academy at 2:30 p.m., Tucson time, tomorrow. Findlay, 24-2 and ranked No. 5 in the latest ESPN RISE Top 50 poll, plays No. 6 Rockville (Md.) Montrose Christian Academy (18-0), at 5:30 p.m.

Turner and Johnson, one of the UA’s best guard tandems recruited in the same class, have not been together since the weekend of Sept. 18-19 when they officially visited the UA campus. Turner followed Johnson’s lead and verbally committed after watching the Wildcats’ football team win a thriller over Iowa that weekend. Both signed a national letter of intent with Arizona coach Sean Miller‘s program in November.

They were McDonald’s All-American hopefuls but Johnson and Turner were not selected Thursday.

Findlay assistant coach Todd Simon told me Johnson is taking the omission in stride.

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San Diego Hoover High School has a history of mentoring athletes and preparing them for the next level as a scout and coach over the last two decades (Photo courtesy of Hoover High School)

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San Diego Hoover High School coach Ollie Goulston is intelligent and thorough enough to guide a touted prospect the right way in the recruiting process, not because he is an Ivy League grad, but he knows of the different elements that permeate youth basketball these days.

“My rule is there are no hangers-on allowed on the Hoover campus,” Goulston told me, bluntly, Monday night. “If that happens, the player is not on my team.”

Goulston, who played baseball at Dartmouth and later served as the San Diego Padres’ assistant director of scouting and player development from 1992-94, has taken on the responsibility of guiding his star player, Class of 2011 post player Angelo Chol, during the recruiting process.

Goulston said Chol, nor his father, who works in the meat packing business in San Diego, required him to provide help in gathering information about his primary suitors — Arizona, Washington, Alabama, Kansas and North Carolina. Goulston said he stepped in because he has two decades of experience with the scouting and recruiting phase, with the Padres and as a youth basketball coach.

Angelo Chol, a Sudan native who became a U.S. citizen last June, represented Team USA in the Youth Olympic Games last year in Singapore (Team USA photo)

“For the last 19 years I’ve been around players who have advanced to college, some to the NBA, so I am familiar with what this process is all about,” said Goulston, who coached Arizona senior Jamelle Horne at Hoover during his first season as head coach there in 2004-05, when Horne was a sophomore.

A public high school coach taking an interest in his star player’s future is somewhat of a throwback these days. Traveling-club coaches are becoming more instrumental in a player’s recruitment. Summer-time AAU tournaments have more relevance in terms of college coaches scouting top-flight competition than a high school state tournament.

That puts more influence in the hands of traveling-club coaches and others associated with them (i.e. shoe and athletic apparel representatives).

“I am very close with Angelo,” said Goulston, who toured the Arizona campus with Chol (6-9, 215) during an official visit last weekend. “This is a very important time for him. We’re in the information-gathering process. That’s where I can help.

“The only way he could make the best decision for his future is to gather all that information about every school. Some players don’t take the time to think things through and that’s why you’re seeing a lot of transfers because players are committing too early.”

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This item is one of the notes that will be published later today at WildcatSportsReport.com as part of its “Nothing But the Notes” package

DeAndre Daniels, a 6-foot-7, 195-pound standout from Woodland Hills, Calif., could not negotiate a basket against Nick Johnson and other Findlay defenders in about 20 minutes of playing time Friday during IMG Academy’s 136-69 loss at the Henderson (Nev.) International School gymnasium.

Daniels was beset with foul trouble from the start, with three in the first half. He eventually fouled out. Daniels, who exhausted his eligibility in high school, is playing one season for IMG to prepare himself one more season for the collegiate level. His suitors include Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida. He originally committed to Texas in July 2009 but de-committed this August.

Johnson, a high-profile Class of 2011 Arizona signee, had a determined look on his face when he told me after the game that he and the Pilots “just wanted to make a statement” by limiting Daniels as much as possible.

“They had a top player coming in, so we knew that they were going to be a tough project coming in,” Daniels said. “From the get-go, I wanted to guard him and just wanted to make a statement. He did not score.”

When asked what he takes pride in the most — his offense with his above-the-rim dynamics and three-point shooting or his suffocating defense — Johnson said his defense feeds his offense.

“I like to say my defense leads into my offense,” he said. “Whenever I have a big game it’s because I am playing defense hard and I am getting into my defender in the midst of the offensive part. I guess I’d like to say it’s my defense (of which he’s most proud).”

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