Kentucky signee due for a rise in the rankings (and other basketball recruiting notes)
At the time of Brandon “BJ” Boston’s commitment to Kentucky last summer, he was ranked by Rivals.com as the No. 7 overall basketball prospect in the entire class of 2020.
A few weeks after that pledge, Rivals dropped him to No. 10 in the rankings. A few months after that, the next update to the 2020 list had Boston as the No. 17 overall player in his class.
Why the drop?
“What we really wanted to see was him have more of an impact on games when the going was kind of tough — when a crucial play needed to be made in a winning situation,” Rivals.com national analyst Eric Bossi told the Herald-Leader this week.
Bossi noted that Boston — a 6-foot-6 shooting guard — played alongside five-star point guard and Auburn commitment Sharife Cooper on the Nike spring and summer circuit. Cooper, one of the most dynamic players in the country, was among the league leaders in scoring and averaged a league-high 21 shot attempts per game. He was also among the Nike leaders in assists — opening up plenty of opportunities for Boston — but it was clear that the offense on that team flowed through Cooper, and that made it difficult to grade certain aspects of Boston’s game.
“It’s tough sometimes, because he was playing with a very ball-dominant guard with Sharife Cooper,” Bossi said. “And what happens sometimes when you’re playing with a guy like that is it’s hard to tell, ‘OK, how much is coming off of the action that this guy is creating for me? And how much is coming for what he can create for himself?’ Especially with a guy who’s going to be in a position where creating his own offense is going to be important.”
Now, Boston has moved from Georgia to California and is in the middle of his senior season at a new high school, Sierra Canyon, the nation’s most star-studded roster featuring multiple five-star prospects and several future Division I players, including the sons of NBA legends LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
The difference now is that more of the offense is flowing through Boston, who has been showing a newfound aggression with the basketball and has consistently led Sierra Canyon in scoring through the team’s early-season games.
“Now, we’re getting to see him in a different situation where there’s definitely not a ball-dominant point guard — there’s really not a point guard at Sierra Canyon, period — and seeing what he’s capable of doing, to create for himself, playing with a little bit more of an edge,” Bossi said. “He just seems to have a little more competitive fire in him. And, man, he’s shooting the cover off the ball. You can’t fault anything he’s doing right now, and he looks like he’s gotten better.”
The next update to the Rivals.com rankings will come later this month, and it sounds like Boston, who officially signed with Kentucky in November, will be making his way back toward top-10 status when that new list is revealed.
“I still think, ‘OK, 17 — if somewhere else has him 10 or 12 or whatever, it’s not like we hate the guy.’ He’s still one of the top 17 players in America,” Bossi said. “It’s not like we dislike him. We like him a lot to rank him that high. But the bottom line here is he definitely looks better to me. He looks like he’s improved. And maybe it was just seeing him in a different situation that helped that, but when you see a guy look and play better than what you thought he was, you have to recognize it. And, at least for me, he’s certainly outplayed where we have him currently ranked.”
Ulis-like tendencies?
As chronicled in the Herald-Leader this week, the only uncommitted point guard in the country with a Kentucky scholarship is Memphis-area standout Kennedy Chandler, who landed that offer on Christmas Day and plans to visit UK for a game later this season.
At a shade taller than 6 feet and weighing just 165 pounds, he doesn’t fit the physical description of many of John Calipari’s great point guards of the recent past. His play on the court — smart, crafty, inventive with the basketball — does bring to mind another former Calipari point guard, however. And when Chandler’s high school coach, Briarcrest Christian’s John Harrington, started describing a specific aspect of his game, that likeness sounded even stronger.
“You don’t see it in high school — but you saw it on the Nike circuit — he’s an elite passer for lobs to the big kids,” Harrington told the Herald-Leader of Chandler. “You don’t have 7-footers in high school, so you don’t see that. But as he comes off ball screens and there’s a big kid that he can throw it up to — he’s very good at that.”
That brought to mind a high school-aged Tyler Ulis, who made a habit of coming off screens ready to lob passes into the paint. His teammates at the time were small, so those lobs often led merely to layups, and some of those shots were still contested. But it was clear then that — when Ulis arrived at Kentucky, where he’d have much taller and more athletic teammates — that skill with lobs would come in mighty handy.
As he listened to a description of how Ulis played in high school, Harrington verbally nodded on the other line, dropping “yep” after “yep” at each point.
“Yep. That’s him,” he said at the end. “That’s exactly what Kennedy can do. He’s very good at that.”
Kennedy Chandler and Memphis
Speaking of Chandler, it was made clear earlier this week that the Memphis star is no lock for Penny Hardaway and the hometown Tigers, and the Herald-Leader was told later in the week that it actually seems unlikely, at this stage in his recruitment, that Chandler will end up staying in the city for college.
That would be good news for Tennessee, another home-state program that has made him a major priority. It’s also good news for the likes of Kentucky and Duke and the other major colleges pursuing his commitment.
While Hardaway cleaned up with Memphis-area stars in his first year on the job — and should be expected to have similar results in the near future — it appears Chandler will be a unique case, and it sounds likely he’ll end up going elsewhere.
Jaden Hardy and reclassification
Some astute Kentucky fans on social media have noted in recent weeks that Jaden Hardy — the top guard in the 2021 class and a major UK target — is actually older than future Wildcats point guard Devin Askew, who announced his reclassification from 2021 to 2020 last year and will play in Lexington next season.
This is true. Hardy is exactly three weeks older than Askew.
With reclassification all the rage among high school basketball stars, some UK fans have presumed that Hardy, too, would try to move up a class and play college ball next season.
That seems unlikely.
While Hardy is older than Askew, he’d still be a very young college freshman if he were to make that move for next season. In fact, he doesn’t turn 18 years old until July, and, therefore, wouldn’t turn 19 until a few months after next season.
For comparison’s sake, the youngest freshman on the current UK team is Johnny Juzang, who turns 19 years old in March. The youngest UK freshman last season was Tyler Herro, who turned 19 just a couple of weeks into Southeastern Conference play.
Using Askew’s age to try and predict Hardy’s future plans is probably not the best method, since Askew himself will be an anomaly.
Of the 29 players in Kentucky’s five most recent recruiting classes, only two others have been younger than Askew (or Hardy) relative to the start of their college careers. One was Sacha Killeya-Jones, who struggled in two seasons at UK. And the other was Kevin Knox, who Calipari constantly called “the youngest player in college basketball” as a reminder to keep expectations somewhat grounded.
It’s worth noting that no one in Hardy’s camp has floated the idea of reclassification. In fact, the Herald-Leader was told recently that it hasn’t come up in conversation and would likely be a bad move for his development.
It’s also worth noting that such a move would likely hurt Kentucky’s chances with Hardy, since the Cats already have two star shooting guards — Brandon Boston and Terrence Clarke — signed for next season and should have a few other talented perimeter options.
Also, such a move would be more likely to hurt Hardy’s NBA Draft stock than help it. Right now, he’s the top backcourt player in a class that is largely lacking in impact perimeter prospects. Even if the next group in line — the class of 2022 — is allowed to skip college and go straight to the NBA, it appears that Hardy would remain one of the top two or three guards in that draft pool. If he made the jump to 2020, he’d join a group heavy on impact guards.
Until something credible on reclassification comes directly from Hardy’s camp, it’s best to assume he’ll be sticking in 2021. And that would likely be the best news for Kentucky.
Greg Brown at Kentucky
A reminder that five-star forward Greg Brown — the No. 7 overall player in the Rivals.com rankings for 2020 — will be on UK’s campus this weekend for his official visit.
Brown — a 6-9 prospect from Austin, Texas — is expected to choose either UK, Auburn, Memphis, Michigan or Texas sometime this spring. Whichever college he picks is likely to have him for only one season.
The highly athletic, high-upside forward was one of dozens of top recruits at the USA Basketball training camp in Colorado Springs a couple of months ago, and — shortly after the conclusion of that camp — ESPN evaluators in attendance posted their first mock NBA Draft for 2021.
Brown was listed at No. 9 overall in that mock draft.
Terrence Clarke (at No. 5) was the only Kentucky signee listed ahead of Brown, who was positioned one spot higher than UK signee Brandon Boston (No. 10), the only other Wildcats recruit on the list.
