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Pinkston on Thursday committed to Villanova head coach Jay Wright, the initial choice for the 6-foot-6, 230-pound combo forward from Brooklyn Bishop Loughlin High School.

"I'm very excited to be committing to Villanova," Pinkston said. "It's one of the top programs in the country. I want to play with and against the best players in the country and playing for Villanova will afford me that opportunity. I'm excited and thankful."

"I just think that there were too many positives that he couldn't turn down right now," Kimani Young, Pinkston's mentor, said. "He got a great place to go to. It's just as good an opportunity for him as it is for Nova to get him."

Pinkston is the top player in the city and is ranked No. 15 among power forwards and No. 67 overall in the Class of 2010 by Rivals. He averaged 24.6 points last season at Loughlin.

He chose Villanova over Tennessee, Marquette, Seton Hall and St. John's.

"Jay is a fierce competitor," Young said. "He's a win-at-all-costs kind of kid. He's fearless. He's tough and then he's highly skilled. I think his best basketball is ahead of him."

"He's a Jamal Mashburn clone," said New York recruiting expert Tom Konchalski. "He has very soft hands. He has very good skill with the ball. He can handle the ball on the perimeter.

"He's not going to guard a perimeter player right now. He can pass the ball, can get to the basket, he can shoot 3's. He has a strong body where he can post and score inside. He's a really skilled player who has a mature understanding of the game. He's got to learn to bring it every single night, which hasn't always been the case in the past.

"He's as good as we have in the metropolitan area."

Pinkston was initially set to announce his college choice on Nov. 18, the last day of the early signing period, but held off. The following day, 6-8 Long Island forward Tobias Harris announced his commitment to Tennessee.

Now Pinkston will wait until the spring signing period to sign.

"Over the last week or two we've just been weighing his options and watching teams play," Young said. "We didn't have too much interaction with the coaching staffs over the last few weeks. We've been watching teams play and we just want to go into a winning situation. We think he fits in."

Villanova was the preseason No. 1 pick in the Big East and is currently ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press poll.

Pinkston becomes the third 2010 player to commit to the Wildcats, following 6-5 SF James Bell and 6-9 C Markus Kennedy, both of whom signed Letters of Intent last month.

The Wildcats are also in the mix for 6-4 point guard Cory Joseph, a Canadian native playing at Findlay (Nev.) Prep, who will also sign late. Joseph has cut his list to Villanova, UConn, Texas, Minnesota and UNLV.

Pinkston skipped the Reebok All-American Camp in Philadelphia this summer in order to attend summer school and focus on his academics.

"Yes, it is," Pinkston said then when asked if the decision was hard. "I was looking forward to coming out and playing against some of the top players in my class.

"I'm trying to become a better student-athlete so that's why I decided to go to summer school."

Just a few weeks later, Pinkston outplayed Texas-bound forward Tristan Thompson of Grassroots Canada and scored a team-high 19 points in a 70-69 victory at the Adidas Super 64 event in Las Vegas.

Pinkston caught the attention of Grassroots Canada coach Ro Russell on one play when he drove through the paint and finished a layup high off the glass on the left side.

"He's strong," said Russell, who has sent numerous players to the Division I ranks. "He's versatile for his size. He can finish to his left or his right. He plays real hard."

The 6-10 Thompson, whom Russell said could one day be the best player ever to come out of Canada, finished with just nine points in the game.

"He has really recreated himself as a basketball player," said New Heights assistant Adam Berkowitz of Perkins, referring they hype surrounding Pinkston early in his career and then seemed to disappear for a period before reasserting himself.

"When you have guys like ACC and SEC and Big East-type coaches furiously scribbling as he's guarding Tristan Thompson on the perimeter and shooting up shots and pushing the ball up the court, they see a lot of aspects to his game that maybe they didn't think he had."

Villanova's Wright tracked Pinkston throughout the summer, along with several other coaches, but in the end the Wildcats won the Pinkston sweepstakes.

"It was a reality for him to go to any of those last five schools," Young said. "All those schools did a great job recruiting him. He's learned a lot about the process."