Jabari Parker plans to get his degree from Duke even if he leaves early for the NBA.

"I made a deal with Jabari that if he is going to leave early, you've got to have that degree, and seven years is the deadline," Jabari's mother, Lola Parker, said. "The schools have been very accommodating where they have personalized Jabari's schedule so if he does decide to go pro we've done finance classes and a lot of media and TV stuff.

"We are preparing him for the next phase. If he does decide to go pro, he will need to go to summer classes. Whatever city he ends up in, he still takes classes during the season. I will create a tutor to travel with Jabari."

Parker indicated he might play two or three seasons in college.

"I'll go off of how I do," Parker said. "You never know. I may play in college for two or three years. It doesn't matter to me. I want the college experience, but the most important thing is getting a degree. I want to go to school. That's important to me, just going to school."

North Carolina Tar Heels coach Roy Williams watched Huntington Prep's 99-53 win over the University of Charleston JV team on Wednesday.

"We're in exam period right now, so we didn't practice today at all and Monday and Tuesday, we had very little workout, so I'm trying to get out and see quite a bit this week," Williams said.

Presumably, Williams was there to watch Andrew Wiggins and Montaque Gill-Caesar.
 
"Williams is not only here for Andrew. He's here for Tekhi (Gill-Caesar), too," Huntington coach Rob Fulford said. "Tekhi is top 15 in the country in his class and those schools are obviously going to recruit him. I challenged him a little bit and he competed a little bit more and got out in transition."

The 6-foot-5 Gill-Caesar, a 2015 prospect, finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds in the win over Charleston.

Melo Trimble, a top-60 rated class of 2014 prospect, committed to Maryland on Thursday.

Trimble stars at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Va.

“I’ve been watching Maryland most of my life,” said Trimble. “Of course [I remember] when they won [the national] championship with Juan Dixon and Steve Blake. … I always watched them as a kid. I heard about Len Bias and the other players. … When I went to games [at Comcast Center], it gave me chills and I wasn’t even playing. I could just imagine myself playing in the arena. … [I was just] waiting for that offer.”

The 6-foot-2 Trimble recently shifted to point guard and is averaging 18 points, eight rebounds and seven assists this season.

“They told me I’m going to play the 1 and 2,” Trimble said. “One of my good friends, Roddy Peters, is going there. We’re very interchangeable. And so is Seth Allen. They think all three of us can play together.”

North Carolina has not used small ball lineups in the past, choosing instead to rely on an inside-out philosophy led by capable forwards and centers.

Early this season, though, the Tar Heels have excelled with a lineup comprised essentially of four guards.

“I hope that we don’t have to go small by necessity like it was against Butler,” Roy Williams said, referencing the Tar Heels’ second-half comeback earlier this season against the Bulldogs, who held on to win after UNC’s small lineup cut a 29-point second-half lead to six. “But [against UAB] we went small because I thought it would help us. But we’ll play that lineup. It’s hard to guard. But we’ve got to do a better job on the defensive end, too, and protect the goal.”

The Tar Heels' four-guard lineup has at times been a liability on defense.

“I felt like we [weren’t] talking enough on the defensive end of the floor,” Reggie Bullock said of the defensive breakdowns on Sunday against UAB. “We were letting their shooters just come off and just drill us without talking, saying, ‘Switch.’ Because we were small, we could really switch with anyone.”

Roddy Peters will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery on Dec. 21.

Peters, who originally dislocated his shoulder over the summer playing on the AAU circuit, will play five more games for the Suitland High (MD) Rams before undergoing the correcive procedure.

“Just thinking about all my family who never got to see me play, and also my friends,” Peters wrote of his decision to play through the injury. “I (never) want to stop playing basketball so I want to play until I can’t anymore.”

Peters is expected to be sidelined until June.

Mason Plumlee was only a 52.8 percent foul shooter as a junior and was seen as a late-game liability because of his inability to make free throws.

Plumlee has made a substantial jump to 76.1 percent this season.

“Maybe last year or the year before, he would avoid contact because he didn’t want to go to the line,” Blue Devils associate head coach Chris Collins said. “Now he goes right through a guy’s chest and goes up there and makes two free throws with a couple of minutes left in the game. It shows a lot about the work he has put in.”

Plumlee’s improved free throw shooting is due in part to a tweaked technique.

“Coach (Mike Krzyzewski) told me last year, ‘don’t even dribble, just get up there, take a breath and let it go,’ Plumlee said. “You know, I like it. That is my routine. My routine is not to dribble, just let it go.”

Plumlee shot as many as 800 free throws a day over the summer.

“It was just a gradual increase,” Plumlee said. “If you did a scatter plot, it would just be a steady slope. There would be days where I would shoot better and days when I would shoot worse than the day before, but I just kept at it.”

Joel Berry, a top-30 prospect in 2014, plans to visit North Carolina in January or February of next year.

Berry, a 6-foot-2 guard who plays at Orlando Lake Highland Prep, has scholarship offers from Duke, Kansas, Florida State and Ohio State, among others.

Andrew Wiggins will visit Florida State from Dec. 4-5, Huntington Prep coach Rob Fulford confirmed.

“He’s going to Florida State, I think Tuesday morning,” Fulford said after Wiggins scored 29 points, grabbed 17 rebounds, blocked five shots and recorded five assists in a 76-59 win over Memphis East on Friday. “He’s going down for the Florida game [Wednesday].”

Both of Wiggins' parents -- former NBA player Mitchell Wiggins and former Canadian Olympic track star Marita Payne-Wiggins -- attended Florida State.

“I like to see everything that happened there with my parents,” Wiggins said of FSU. “It would be a joy to go there, I mean great weather. Great people, great education. Great coaching staff. they make players better. They don’t always get the best players in the nation, or top five or top ten, but they develop four-year players to get ready for the NBA.”

Fulford said Wiggins would also like to visit Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina.

“He’s said he wants to go to Florida State, Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina,” he said. “Those are the ones he said he wants to visit. Timeframe, we don’t know. I mean obviously we just don’t have a ton of weekends available for visits. I know he’s going to take this one because his parents can come, but yeah, he said he wants to take at least those four.”