National analyst says UK in good shape with several top basketball recruits

The first day of the early signing period for high school basketball recruits is now two weeks away, and John Calipari still doesn’t have any commitments for 2017.

This group is taking longer to come together than past Calipari recruiting classes — which have all had at least one commitment by this point in the cycle — but the Wildcats are still expected to contend for the No. 1 class in the country.

247Sports national analyst Jerry Meyer is currently predicting — via his website’s “Crystal Ball” feature — that six of the top prospects in the 2017 class will end up at Kentucky: point guard Trae Young, shooting guards Hamidou Diallo and John Petty, small forward Jarred Vanderbilt, power forward PJ Washington and center Nick Richards.

If those predictions pan out, Kentucky will have six of the top 30 players in the 2017 class.

Crystal Ball predictions do not come with degrees of confidence, but Meyer told the Herald-Leader on Tuesday that he’s specifically bullish about UK’s chances with three of the aforementioned players.

“PJ Washington and Nick Richards — I’d put them at the top of the list as far as the most confidence with my Kentucky predictions,” Meyer said. “And probably John Petty, as well.”

Washington — a 6-foot-8 prospect from Findlay Prep (Nev.) — has visited Lexington twice in the past few weeks and recently narrowed his list to UK, North Carolina and UNLV.

“He’s very versatile,” Meyer said. “He has the strength and power to guard bigger guys down low. He has great feet, so he can guard smaller, quicker players on the perimeter. He’s really what you want in a ‘4’ man. He’s a matchup nightmare. He can really attack the basket, and he’s a dangerous rebounder.”

Washington will visit UNLV next weekend and make a college decision shortly after that.

Richards — a 6-11 post player from Queens, N.Y. — has also visited UK twice recently and is expected to pick the Cats over Arizona and Syracuse sometime soon. Petty — a 6-5 wing from Huntsville, Ala. — will take his official visit to Lexington this weekend and has narrowed his list to UK and Alabama.

All three of those players are expected to sign early.

Perhaps the biggest question about UK’s 2017 recruiting class is who Calipari will land at point guard. The Cats are expected to lose Isaiah Briscoe, De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk to the pros after this season, so they’ll need a new starter at the position for the 2017-18 campaign.

Kentucky is Meyer’s pick for Young, the No. 21 overall player in the class, but it’s no sure thing the Norman, Okla., native ends up a Wildcat.

“I think it’s going to come down to Oklahoma and Kentucky,” he said. “Oklahoma has been very good recently, so it’s not like they’re not a good program, but the main draw is familiarity. It’s the local school. Trae’s close to his family and they like to watch him play.

“But it’s obvious he really likes Kentucky and is enamored with that program. So, it’s a tough call.”

UK is also recruiting Quade Green, who visited Syracuse for that school’s midnight madness event last weekend. “Syracuse seems strong there,” Meyer said. The Wildcats also recently jumped into the recruitment of combo guard Shai Alexander — a Top 50 prospect and former Florida commitment — and he will be a legitimate UK target moving forward, though it’s not clear yet if he has any favorites in his recruitment.

Green is one of four 2017 recruits with UK scholarship offers that Meyer is predicting will end up elsewhere — the others are Mohamed Bamba (Duke), Kevin Knox (Duke) and Lonnie Walker (Arizona) — but he said not to count the Cats out of any of those recruitments.

“They have a chance with all of them,” Meyer said. “One that I think they would have the best chance out of those four would be Bamba. A lot of people have Kentucky (favored) for him. … I’ve had him to Duke, and I just haven’t felt compelled to change it. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he ended up at Kentucky.”

Bamba — a 7-footer from Harlem, N.Y., and the No. 3 player in the 2017 rankings — visited UK for Big Blue Madness but is not expected to make a college decision until the spring. Diallo, Knox, Vanderbilt, Walker and Young are also not expected to sign in the early period, which begins Nov. 9.

This story was originally published October 25, 2016 at 5:28 PM with the headline "National analyst says UK in good shape with several top basketball recruits."