One of nation’s top recruits will watch Kentucky practice for Vegas trip. ‘He’s excited.’
Never one to miss a recruiting opportunity, John Calipari is taking a two-pronged approach to the first night of Kentucky’s nearly weeklong basketball trip to Las Vegas.
Shortly after the Wildcats’ arrival out west Tuesday, they’ll head to Coronado High School for a later-than-usual practice in preparation for Wednesday’s much-later-than-usual 11 p.m. ET tip-off against Utah.
That’s the same Coronado High School that features Jaden Hardy, one of the best players in all of high school basketball and one of the first recruits from the class of 2021 to land a scholarship offer from Kentucky.
The Cats will have a place to practice. Their coach will have an opportunity for some additional face time with one of his top recruiting targets.
“It worked out perfectly,” Coronado head coach Jeff Kaufman told the Herald-Leader by phone Tuesday, shortly after Calipari revealed the locale for his team’s practice that night.
Former UK Athletics official Brooks Downing’s marketing firm is staging the Kentucky-Utah game, and Kaufman said his school already had a previous relationship with the company. It was mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Kentucky might need a place to practice on the night before the game. “Well, you know they’re welcome to come,” Kaufman said at the time.
A few days later, he got the response from UK: “We’re coming.”
In the short term, the arrangement gave Calipari and the Cats a flexible space to practice on the eve of the unorthodox tip-off time.
“We’ll get out there tonight,” Calipari said Tuesday in Lexington. “We’re going to practice, try to get them to sleep tonight, hopefully keep them up on the plane.”
The Wildcats departed for Las Vegas in the early afternoon, eastern time, and Kaufman said his understanding was that the UK team would head straight from the airport to Coronado High School, where his team would wrap up its practice around 4:30 p.m. local time, clearing the court for the Cats to begin their session around 5 p.m. (or maybe a little later).
Kaufman said his entire team would stick around to watch.
“It’s great for our kids to see those kinds of practices,” he said, adding that they often go to nearby UNLV as a team to watch games and practices. “They see how hard you have to work in practice every day. College practices are no joke. So, everything that we’re trying to get them ready for, they get to see firsthand. It’s very enlightening for them, I think. And they really enjoy getting to watch that. So, to have Kentucky in? That’s a big deal.”
Recruiting Jaden Hardy
Hardy, of course, will be among those young players watching the Wildcats on Tuesday.
The 6-foot-4 prospect is regarded as the No. 1 shooting guard in the 2021 class and No. 7 player overall, according to the latest 247Sports rankings. He was the first 2021 prospect at his position to land a Kentucky scholarship offer, and UK’s coaches — Calipari included — have made multiple trips to the Vegas area to see him since the fall recruiting period began back in September.
“They’ve stayed in touch with him,” Kaufman said. “Jaden always shows me the texts. He gets all excited. When you’re a junior in high school, and you’re getting texts from Coach Calipari, it’s very exciting. So he always shares them. And Jaden immediately responds.”
Kaufman said there was one recent text exchange, in particular, where Calipari told the 17-year-old recruit, “That’s a great response,” following one of Hardy’s texts reacting to Calipari’s thoughts.
“Jaden was very excited about that,” his coach said.
Hardy is off to a stellar start to his junior season, averaging more than 30 points per game so far and turning in a 40-point showing last week — just missing out on a triple-double — that Rivals.com national analyst Eric Bossi called “the early leader for top performance of the winter.”
“He’s just gotten bigger, and he’s just much more mature,” Kaufman said. “He’s in very good shape, and he’s just very bouncy. His passing is just unbelievable.
“I’ve always thought he was a great passer. His freshman year, we had good players, but we didn’t have great, great guys that ran down the floor and caught the ball. Over the past couple of years, we’ve had guys that can catch the basketball. And his passing is really good. He’s fun to watch, man. I’m enjoying it.”
Hardy was hoping to attend UK’s Big Blue Madness event in October — shortly after he received the scholarship offer from Calipari — but he was unable to make that trip due to a scheduling conflict with a major USA Basketball camp.
He’ll still visit Lexington sometime down the road, but Tuesday night’s arrangement will allow him to experience a Kentucky basketball practice firsthand before he even gets to UK’s campus.
“He’s excited. He’s ready to go,” Kaufman said. “He’s going to be there watching. And we play (Wednesday) at 3 o’clock, so I’m pretty sure there are going to be some Kentucky people coming to watch him, too. I think this will be a great experience for him.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 3:49 PM.
