Kentucky basketball recruiting mailbag: Who’s next for the Wildcats’ class of 2021?
Earlier this week, we asked you for any questions related to the Kentucky basketball team or John Calipari’s recruiting efforts for the 2021 class and beyond. There were several good ones, and this first batch will focus primarily on recruiting.
Stay tuned for another mailbag focused on the upcoming season later this week.
Here we go:
With Nolan Hickman already joining the 2021 class, who do you see as the next dominoes to fall in UK’s next class?
The Wildcats have Hickman, and that was a big addition. The college-ready point guard from Seattle will sign with Kentucky next month.
Who’s next?
The four names to focus on in the immediate future are Skyy Clark, Daimion Collins, Bryce Hopkins and Hunter Sallis.
▪ Clark — a 6-foot-3 point guard who recently moved from Los Angeles to Nashville — is currently a member of the 2022 class, but he’s going to announce his college commitment Oct. 22, and he’s narrowed his list to UK, North Carolina, Memphis and UCLA. At this point, I expect him to end up in the 2021 class. It’s rare that a recruit who has been linked to reclassification as much as Clark chooses to make a decision at this point in the process and actually stays in high school for an additional year. He’d be on the younger side in the 2021 class, but he’ll be plenty ready for college ball.
Right now, it’s looking like UK and North Carolina for Clark, and — despite some buzz in the Tar Heels’ favor — the Cats remain a very real threat to land his commitment. We’ll see what happens on the 22nd.
▪ Of the other three, Hopkins seems the most likely to make a decision in the next few weeks. At the time UK extended a scholarship offer in late August, the Cats were seen as a near lock to land the versatile 6-7 small forward. Kentucky remains the consensus favorite as of this writing, but don’t be surprised if that narrative changes soon. The longer a recruitment that was expected to end in short order lingers, the more uncertainty creeps in. And schools like Illinois and Indiana continue to make the Chicago standout a major priority.
▪ Collins — a super athletic, 6-10 power forward from rural east Texas — narrowed his choices to five schools this week: UK, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Texas Tech. His commitment will almost certainly go to one of the first three schools on that list. The original plan was to wait until the spring to make a college choice, but — after talking to some folks close to his recruitment — I’d expect a decision much sooner than that. Possibly in time for the early signing period.
▪ Sallis is the highest-ranked recruit of this bunch — No. 6 nationally, according to Rivals and 247Sports — and he’s gaining steam as the consensus No. 1 point guard in the 2021 class. He, too, has talked about waiting until the spring to make a college commitment. There’s a good chance he’s ready to make a call in the next few weeks, though, and — if that happens — I really like Kentucky’s chances. (Kansas and North Carolina are the other two most linked to his recruitment). It was also interesting that longtime Rivals.com analyst Eric Bossi — one of the most respected names in recruiting — chose Sallis to Kentucky for his first 247Sports Crystal Ball prediction after moving to that website this week.
I wouldn’t be surprised if all four of these players make their college decisions in time for the early signing period, which ends Nov. 18. And if all four do decide by then, I’d bet Kentucky ends up with at least a couple of them.
How has Kentucky’s adaptation to the COVID-19 recruiting restrictions compared to other schools? And how do you think this period will affect future UK classes?
It seems like the way Kentucky recruited compared to other schools pre-COVID has followed pretty much the same trajectory since these strange times began and the NCAA decided to ban all recruiting travel by college coaches and high school prospects.
In the past, UK was seen as perhaps the most meticulous program in the country when it came to dishing out scholarship offers. While other coaches — even at big-name schools — weren’t shy about sending out offers after little real contact with prospects, John Calipari and the UK staff typically watched a young recruit multiple times, over a relatively lengthy time period, and met with the player and his family/inner circle before pulling the trigger on an offer.
Kentucky is one of the few schools that can afford to be so thorough, and it’s obviously worked in the past. For the most part, Calipari and his staff have found the best fits for his vision of the Wildcats’ program.
With no travel to games and recruiting events, and no travel to visit with recruits and their families in person, UK has resorted to phone calls, film sessions and Zoom meetings. Calipari has broken his unwritten rule of “no offers sight unseen” for a few guys this summer, but that number is still small compared to other top programs that have handed out scholarship offers to a large number of prospects based on limited or zero in-person contact.
Kentucky has extended 10 offers in this cycle, most of those to players the Cats were actively recruiting before the pandemic began. For comparison’s sake, Louisville has extended 32 such offers. Kansas has sent out 29. And so on.
For the players UK wasn’t as familiar with on a personal level — such as Daimion Collins, Bryce Hopkins and Hunter Sallis — the coaching staff took its time and did as much due diligence as possible under the current circumstances before offering.
So, Calipari has had to bend some from his usual recruiting methods, but I don’t see Kentucky offering kids willy-nilly anytime soon.
As for how it affects future classes, I think UK is in a pretty good spot there. The current dead period runs through at least Jan. 1. The hope in college basketball circles is that coaches will be able to get back on the road next spring or summer. In the meantime, Kentucky is one of the few programs that doesn’t need to feel forced to offer kids from the 2022 class and beyond. The coaching staff is monitoring quite a few players in that ’22 group, building early relationships and following on-court progress. If they can get back on the road by the summer, that should give them plenty of time to lock in on some top targets, get those players on campus, and start building that class.
And no one else can travel to recruit either. So, on an even playing field like that, Kentucky will always have some built-in advantages. (It certainly doesn’t hurt that the NBA Playoff bubble has been one big, extended infomercial for UK basketball, with former Calipari players Bam Adebayo, Anthony Davis and Tyler Herro currently starring in the NBA Finals).
Do you think this new approach John Calipari is taking in recruiting will work, and, if so, will he still go after the top 10 recruits that UK is used to getting?
This new approach, which has evolved over the past few years, was laid out a couple of weeks ago in our dissection of the summer composite rankings for the 2021 class. Those rankings showed UK pursuing players from all over the top 50. Not long ago, at this stage in a recruiting cycle, the Cats were focused almost solely on the very best (i.e. top 10-15) players in the upcoming senior class.
It’s clear Calipari is trying to move toward recruiting a wider range of prospects. And it seems like a winning strategy. 1) UK has been burned by plenty of the top-10-types in recent years, and 2) the emergence of the G League (and other pro options straight out of high school) will lead to more of those top 10 players skipping college altogether.
So, yeah, I think this is a good move by Kentucky and something I know they’ve been working toward for a while. They will still pursue top 10 national players (Hunter Sallis, for instance) but they won’t be wasting time on guys they don’t think they have a chance to get. UK spent ample time recruiting Paolo Banchero, because they had a legitimate chance to land him. He picked Duke, but you’re never going to win every recruitment.
The Cats seemingly haven’t spent nearly as much time on Patrick Baldwin Jr., who would be a long shot, at best, to end up at UK. They completely passed on top-five recruits Chet Holmgren and Jabari Smith, because they identified early on that those players probably wouldn’t have ended up in Lexington even with a full-court press recruitment.
So, if you can get a player or two like Sallis, mix in a high-upside but possible multi-year player like Daimion Collins, and then add a couple more multi-year (but instant-impact) guys like Nolan Hickman and Bryce Hopkins, you’ll — in theory — have much more roster continuity from season to season without sacrificing the chance at some one-and-done talent.
Another key ingredient to this approach, especially in the short term, will be adding transfers. I would be shocked if Kentucky doesn’t end up with at least one transfer as part of its 2021 class. The NCAA appears set to open the doors for transfers to play immediately without the penalty of sitting out a year starting next season, and UK has already had success with grad transfers in recent years. In this unorthodox recruiting cycle, specifically, UK can wait and see what roster holes they have in the spring, then target the appropriate needs from what is expected to be a talented pool of transfer options. Obviously, to retain some roster continuity, the Cats will have to keep some of their own lesser-utilized players from transferring out.
It can be a double-edged sword, but I think the hope on UK’s end will be to sprinkle in a couple of possible one-and-done lottery picks with a few talented-and-experienced returning players, some multi-year freshmen and a transfer or two. That, to me, would be a winning combination.
Cal has historically used official visits to close the deal with recruits and their families. How much do you think the banning of visits until January has affected Kentucky’s recruiting for 2021?
It’s certainly had an effect. To what degree, we’ll never know, but it would be impossible to say this recruiting dead period hasn’t changed the dynamic for UK and every other school in the country.
If Paolo Banchero had a chance to make one last round of official visits after the summer before making his college decision, would he have ended up at Kentucky? Maybe.
If Jaden Hardy had a chance to visit UK for the first time in the spring, summer or fall, would he have fallen in love with Lexington and put an end to the G League buzz? Perhaps.
But … it’s also possible that the Cats wouldn’t have zeroed in as quickly on a player like Nolan Hickman, who some people I really respect and are not at all affiliated with UK’s program have told me might end up being the best pure point guard in the entire class. It’s also possible that — if this year had been normal — a player like Daimion Collins or Hunter Sallis might have committed elsewhere before UK got seriously involved.
We just don’t know how things would’ve turned out. We do know that UK is still in a very good position with this 2021 class. The Cats could still end up with the No. 1- or 2-ranked group in America. And, with every other school in the same boat as far as recruiting restrictions, it’s always best to bet on Calipari to find a path to success.
Speaking of Calipari — yes, he has gained the reputation as one of the best closers in college basketball when it comes to those final recruiting meetings. There have certainly been some exceptions in recent years, but if Cal has a legitimate shot to lock up a commitment in the final stages, it’s tough to pick against him.
Obviously, he can’t do that in person for the time being, but recent conversations with those in recruiting circles have made it clear that Calipari’s charm — or whatever you want to call it — comes through just fine on Zoom calls.
Daimion Collins’ high school coach, Jarrod Boston, chuckled a couple of weeks ago when he relayed the details of Calipari’s first video meeting with Collins’ parents.
“This guy’s a character!” Collins’ mom told Boston afterward. She meant that in a good way. She described it as a long meeting, and she was excited to talk with the UK coach.
Other families that have met with Calipari virtually over the past few months have told similar tales.
The UK coach won’t get that one last chance (or first chance, in the case of these newer targets) to walk a kid and his family through the Joe Craft Center or the Rupp Arena locker room or show them the zaniness of Big Blue Madness, but he’ll still have those salesman instincts, and he’ll still be selling Kentucky basketball and all that comes with it. That makes for a pretty good closing pitch, no matter the medium.
