UK basketball recruiting notes: New rankings for 2017; Bolden predictions; UK recruit to watch

UK basketball recruiting target DeAndre Ayton is once again No. 1 in the class of 2017 rankings from Rivals.com.

The new rankings, which were updated Tuesday, moved Ayton back to the top spot after he fell to No. 4 in the class following an uneven summer. The 7-footer from the Bahamas has impressed during his junior season at Hillcrest Prep in Arizona, and he’s now considered the No. 1 player in the class of 2017 by all four of the major recruiting services.

Ayton has said recently that UK, Duke and Kansas are the three schools that he is most interested in during the early stages of his recruitment.

Kentucky has also extended early scholarship offers to the next three players in the new Rivals rankings: 2. Michael Porter Jr., 3. Mohamed Bamba and 4. Wendell Carter.

Texas teammates Trevon Duval and Billy Preston, who both visited UK last month but do not yet have scholarship offers from the Wildcats, come in at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively.

Other players in the new rankings with confirmed scholarship offers from UK include Texas forward Jarred Vanderbilt (No. 11), Oklahoma point guard Trae Young (No. 13), Minnesota shooting guard Gary Trent Jr. (No. 15), Alabama wing John Petty (No. 17) and New Jersey center Nick Richards (No. 19).

Players on UK’s radar and still awaiting scholarship offers from the Cats include Connecticut shooting guard Hamidou Diallo (No. 10), Indiana forwards Kris Wilkes and Brian Bowen (Nos. 12 and 14, respectively), Indiana guard Paul Scruggs (No. 32) and Indiana post player Malik Williams (No. 36).

Kentucky does not yet have a commitment for the class of 2017.

The only player in the top 20 in the new Rivals rankings that has committed to a school is center Austin Wiley, who is ranked No. 18 overall and is pledged to Auburn.

All-around game

As far as perimeter scorers in the class of 2016 go, it doesn’t get much better than UK signee Malik Monk, who can shoot and slash with the best of his peers.

When asked last week what specifically he’s been working on during his senior season at Bentonville High School in Arkansas, Monk offered up a surprising response.

“I’ve been working on my mid-post game. And I’ve been using my low-post game, too, when I have a smaller guard on me,” he told the Herald-Leader.

Does Monk — a 6-foot-4 combo guard — think he’s going to be doing a lot of posting up when he gets to Kentucky next season.

“You don’t know who’s going to be guarding you — whether they’re shorter, taller, smaller or stronger,” he said. “You still have to have a bunch of skills. You have to be able to knock down those shots in the low-post, mid-post area.”

Bold(en) predictions

The final destination for five-star center Marques Bolden continues to be anyone’s guess.

Bolden — a 6-foot-10 prospect from DeSoto, Texas — is UK’s top recruiting target to fill out the class of 2016.

Two respected analysts on the national recruiting scene — Rivals.com’s Eric Bossi and 247Sports.com’s Andrew Slater — posted new predictions for Bolden online last week. Bossi said Kentucky, and Slater said Duke.

Bolden, who is regarded as the No. 1 center in the class, is also considering Oklahoma and Texas Christian. He could wait until the postseason all-star circuit in late March/early April to announce a decision.

Player to watch

UK Coach John Calipari is still working on adding one more player to his recruiting class of 2016, but it will soon be time to turn his full attention to the 2017 class.

A name to remember when that happens: Hamidou Diallo.

The 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Queens, N.Y., plays his high school ball for Putnam Academy in Connecticut, and Calipari already has visited him multiple times this season.

Diallo — the No. 1 shooting guard in the class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings — does not yet have a scholarship offer from Kentucky, but the word out of New York is that it could come as soon as the first live recruiting period in April, and an official visit to Lexington could quickly follow.

If Diallo does land the UK offer, the Cats likely would be in good position to snag a commitment from one of the most talented players in the class.

Kansas, Louisville, Indiana, UConn and Syracuse are among the schools that have already offered Diallo.

This story was originally published March 1, 2016 at 12:40 PM with the headline "UK basketball recruiting notes: New rankings for 2017; Bolden predictions; UK recruit to watch."