Bagley’s move to Duke for 2017 means UK no longer has nation’s No. 1 recruiting class

Marvin Bagley’s late-night announcement Monday that he was committing to Duke and moving to the class of 2017 led to a shuffle in the recruiting rankings.

As a result, UK took a tumble.

Bagley’s addition to Duke’s already-stellar recruiting class moved that group past Kentucky and into the No. 1 spot nationally in the 2017 rankings.

Rivals.com, Scout.com, ESPN and 247Sports have all made that change since Bagley’s announcement. Scout, ESPN and 247 have also already installed Bagley — a 6-foot-11 power forward — as the new No. 1 overall prospect in the class of 2017.

Duke’s recruiting class now includes four five-star prospects — Bagley, point guard Trevon Duval, shooting guard Gary Trent Jr. and power forward Wendell Carter — as well as Top 100 prospects Alex O’Connell and Jordan Tucker, and three-star point guard Jordan Goldwire.

“Duke got a huge boost with the commitment and decision of 2018’s No. 1 player Marvin Bagley to enroll as a 2017 prospect,” Rivals.com’s Eric Bossi wrote after Monday’s announcement. “He’s elite in all aspects. The nation’s best point guard, Duval should give the Blue Devils the ball handler they’ve lacked since Tyus Jones led them to a National Championship. Carter will be used similar to how Jahlil Okafor was, maybe not quite as skilled with his back to the basket but a better defender. Trent is a physically tough and skilled shooting guard who may be even more dangerous as a post scorer than a jump shooter.”

ESPN, CBS Sports and NBC Sports also updated their preseason rankings for 2017-18 to move Duke into the No. 1 spot, and the Blue Devils will likely start the season as the nation’s top-ranked team.

Kentucky, with its eight-player class, moved to No. 2 in the final 2017 recruiting rankings.

The Cats will bring in five-star point guards Quade Green and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, five-star shooting guard Hamidou Diallo (who joined the team in January), five-star forwards Kevin Knox, Jarred Vanderbilt and PJ Washington, five-star center Nick Richards and four-star guard Jemarl Baker.

NBC Sports has the Cats at No. 5 in its preseason rankings for 2017-18. UK is No. 7 on CBS Sports’ list.

Over the last nine recruiting cycles — going back to John Calipari’s arrival at UK in 2009 — either UK or Duke has ended up with the No. 1-ranked class nationally.

This story was originally published August 15, 2017 at 12:26 PM with the headline "Bagley’s move to Duke for 2017 means UK no longer has nation’s No. 1 recruiting class."