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Quincy Miller, rated the third-best basketball prospect in the class of 2011 by scout.com, is expected to transfer from Quality Education Academy in Winston-Salem to Westchester Country Day in High Point, making the Wildcats a strong contender for a state championship.

Westchester head coach Pat Kahny said Miller, a 6-foot-8, 193-pound forward with a 7-foot-2 wingspan , is “deeply into” the application process at Westchester, and he expects the process to be completed by early next week. Miller, whose scholarship offers include those from Duke, Wake Forest, Kentucky and Georgetown, would join Deuce Bello and Ike Nwamu in the lineup.

“He’s always been talking about coming here,” Kahny said of Miller. “If you know him, he’s got a great personality, always joking around and having fun, so I never knew if he was kind of pulling my leg or being serious. Now it looks like it may be a reality.”

That’s bad news for the rest of the Triad Athletic Conference and NCISAA, which watched Westchester go 26-1 in the last regular season. Led by Bello, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard ranked 102nd in the nation by Scout.com, and Nwamu, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard who is attracting Division I interest, the Wildcats earned the top seed in the 2-A private school state playoffs but were upset in the second round by Victory Christian.

Add Miller, whom an ESPN.com scouting profile compares to 21-year-old NBA scoring champion Kevin Durant, and Westchester would have to be considered one of the favorites to win in 2011

Miller, who grew up in Chicago before moving to North Carolina in 2007, averaged 25.5 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and three blocks per game for Quality Education, which won the National Christian Schools Athletic Association national championship.

Miller and Bello play on the same Greensboro-based AAU team, D-One Sports, that produced projected NBA lottery pick John Wall. D-One is run by Brian Clifton , whose brother Dwon was a standout at Westchester before playing for Clemson and UNCG. Dwon also coached for D-One before being hired as coordinator of operations at Baylor in 2008.

“(Miller) has all the physical gifts and he has the desire,” Brian Clifton told scout.com. “His upside is limitless.”

Contact Tom Keller at 373-70734 or tom.keller@news-record.com