Memphis point guard impresses Calipari, rises to top of Kentucky’s recruiting list
To illustrate the natural basketball IQ of his star point guard, Kennedy Chandler’s high school coach tells a tale from when the coveted recruit was in the third grade.
“The story is ...” begins Briarcrest Christian (Tenn.) head coach John Harrington, “he put the ball under his arm with about a minute to go in the game with a two-point lead. And his coach was telling him, ‘Go shoot! Go shoot!’”
According to Harrington, the pint-sized, grade-school Chandler turned to his coach. “And he said, ‘Look, I got this. They’re not getting the ball back.’”
Chandler knew the score, and — more than anything else, even at that early age — he wanted to win the game.
In that regard, not much has changed.
Now one of the most coveted basketball recruits in the country, Chandler is still a winner.
Last season, as a sophomore, he earned Tennessee Mr. Basketball honors and led Briarcrest Christian to a 29-2 record and its first state championship in 11 years. This past summer, Chandler helped lead Mokan Elite to a title at the prestigious Nike Peach Jam tournament, despite being a grade younger than most of the top competition.
During the course of all that winning, the Memphis-area standout caught the attention of Kentucky Coach John Calipari, who has already attended a few of Chandler’s high school games this season and extended a UK scholarship offer to the junior point guard on Christmas Day.
Harrington, who knows Calipari from the UK coach’s Memphis days, said he recently received a text message shortly after Chandler led Briarcrest Christian to a comeback victory.
“That shows the will to win. The competitive spirit,” Calipari said in the text.
Chandler has that in abundance, according to his coach.
“That’s one thing that Kennedy does,” Harrington said, repeating the next sentence for emphasis. “He does not want to lose at all. He does not want to lose at all.”
And, now, he’s the only uncommitted point guard in the country with a scholarship offer from Calipari, who has had more than his share of standout players at that position.
Chandler, who stands a shade above 6 feet and weighs no more than 165 pounds, doesn’t fit the physical description of most of Calipari’s star point guards of the past, but he makes up for that lack of next-level size with his moxie on the court, among other enviable traits.
“Elite speed. That’s the first thing,” Harrington said. “He’s only about 6-1, but he has elite speed, and he’s a very good athlete that can throw it down. Very crafty around the basket. … He can come off a ball screen and make a big kid better. And that’s what a point guard needs to do.
“(Defensively), he is an elite guy that can steal and get his hands on balls. Last year, he had over 200 deflections and steals. And I think he’s already surpassed that this year — halfway through the season. He’s very good at reacting and reading, and he’s so fast. His first step is like a football wide receiver that (runs) like a 4.3. He has that type of accelerate speed.”
Top point guard recruit
Rivals.com ranks Chandler as the No. 11 overall prospect in the class of 2021, making him the No. 1 overall point guard in a recruiting cycle that’s largely lacking impact players at the all-important position. While high school recruits are often ranked on their long-term (i.e. NBA) potential, Chandler’s size raises some question marks about his professional future, but he has a game that should transition seamlessly to the college level.
“It’s going to translate,” Rivals.com national analyst Corey Evans told the Herald-Leader, matter-of-factly. “He might be the best college point guard in that class, hands down. He’s smaller. And he’s a downhill guy. He can dribble in tight spaces. He’s tough. He’s compact. He plays both sides of the floor. He’s a competitor.”
Only two other point guards in the 2021 class — Khristian Lander and Max Christie — have achieved a five-star ranking from Rivals, and the seeming lack of star players at the position has made Chandler a hot commodity at this relatively early stage in his recruitment.
A couple of weeks before Calipari extended the UK offer, Chandler landed an offer from Duke. A couple of weeks before that, he got one from North Carolina. Arizona, Kansas and Syracuse were among his earlier offers. Home-state powers Tennessee and Memphis have been on him hard. He has visits set up to Florida State and Michigan for next month. His recruitment is, by all measures, a national one, and he’s still adjusting to all of the outside attention.
“You know, in the first half of a game he might try to put a little bit of mustard on some things,” Harrington said with a laugh. “But, after we get his attention, it’s about winning. And he’s getting more and more used to it.”
Calipari vs. Memphis?
Recent history would suggest that Chandler — a five-star recruit from Memphis — would be a virtual lock for Penny Hardaway and the hometown team. Add in the fact that Chandler was in the Team Penny travel program as a middle-schooler and also played for an AAU squad with ties to top Memphis assistant Mike Miller, and his recruitment would appear to be a slam dunk for the Tigers.
That’s not the case here. Unlike James Wiseman and DJ Jeffries — a couple of star signees in last year’s Memphis class — Chandler never actually played for Hardaway, who last coached Team Penny between Chandler’s eighth- and ninth-grade years, before he reached Nike’s top tier. Chandler also once considered a move to Memphis East — where Hardaway was the high school coach — but he instead stuck at Briarcrest, where he had played varsity as an eighth-grader and had been a student since elementary school.
“This is more wide open than it would seem,” Evans said. “There’s going to be some local pressure to stay home. But I think Tennessee has just as good of a chance as Memphis for him, honestly. … And I was always told that if those blue-bloods did come on board — like a Duke or a Kentucky — that would definitely intrigue him.”
Calipari goes into this specific recruitment with some familiarity.
When he was the head coach at Memphis, Calipari’s kids attended Briarcrest Christian, where Harrington was already the coach and an assistant principal. In fact, Harrington said Megan Calipari was one of his student aides in the principal’s office during her time at the school.
And Chandler isn’t the first Briarcrest star that Calipari has recruited.
As Memphis’ coach, he pursued Leslie McDonald, a two-time Mr. Basketball who was part of the 2009 class. McDonald ultimately committed to North Carolina about a year before Calipari left Memphis for Kentucky, but Harrington has fond memories of that recruitment. He said he had implemented Calipari’s dribble-drive offense at Briarcrest, and the two coaches would often go over X’s and O’s during the course of McDonald’s recruitment.
Chandler’s ascension has rekindled that coaching relationship.
“He’s fun to be around. I love him,” Harrington said. “He’s great to talk with. He’s exciting. He’s got a great demeanor about him that just gets everybody fired up.”
