Where undecided McDonald’s All-Americans will end up (and other UK recruiting notes)
The list of McDonald’s All-Americans for 2021 was released this week, and the roster of 24 boys’ selections included six players who have yet to make a final decision regarding their college recruitment.
Unlike past years — when there still seemed to be some level of intrigue surrounding the uncommitted McDonald’s All-American picks — there’s already a consensus in recruiting circles on where this cycle’s undecided bunch will end up. With maybe just one exception.
First, for the players we think we know about.
No. 1 overall recruit Chet Holmgren and top 10 guard Hunter Sallis both seem to be leaning toward Gonzaga, which has never had multiple McDonald’s All-Americans in the same class and has recruited just two such players from high schools in the past. (Three additional McDonald’s All-Americans, including Kyle Wiltjer, later transferred to Gonzaga from other colleges).
Sallis, a longtime UK recruiting target, will announce his college decision March 26. Holmgren has not set a specific date for his college announcement, but there was some recent buzz that it could come as early as this week, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him reveal his choice soon.
Only three other schools have multiple McDonald’s All-American selections this year: Michigan with three, and Kentucky and Duke with two each.
It’s looking like the professional route will be the way No. 2 overall recruit Jaden Hardy and top-15 forward Michael Foster go.
Hardy has long been one of Kentucky’s top priorities — and the Cats have continued to pursue him despite longstanding rumors of a pro move — but it would be considered an upset, at this point, if UK is able to land his commitment.
Foster — a highly athletic power forward — still has several schools on his list, but he’s been seen as a probable straight-to-the-pros prospect for more than a year now. It’s possible that both of those players end up in the G League, which landed four five-star recruits from the 2020 class.
Patrick Baldwin Jr. — the No. 4 recruit in the class — was one of the youngest recruits to ever receive a Duke scholarship offer, but his father is the head coach at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and that school has picked up the last 11 predictions on his 247Sports Crystal Ball and Rivals.com FutureCast pages, including several picks from national analysts.
That would leave five-star shooting guard Trevor Keels as perhaps the most intriguing recruitment left among the uncommitted McDonald’s All-Americans.
Keels — a 6-foot-5 prospect from the Washington, D.C. area — cut his list down to Duke, Villanova and Virginia several months ago. Then, this month, Kentucky got involved seemingly out of nowhere. The Cats were added to Keels’ list, and the Herald-Leader has been told that he is taking UK’s scholarship offer seriously.
There have been a couple of prominent predictions in Duke’s favor over the past few days — and UK obviously has some work to do to catch up with the others on Keels’ list — but it seems far too early to count out John Calipari in this recruitment.
No matter who returns from the current Kentucky team, it appears that next season’s roster would have a great need for a college-ready perimeter scorer like Keels, who has the size and strength to be effective right away and is averaging 29.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 8.0 assists in his senior season.
Kentucky would not have gotten involved so late with his recruitment if the coaching staff didn’t think they had a chance at his commitment. And Keels is expected to hold off on a decision until the spring, primarily so he can see what rosters look like at each school in hopes of finding the best possible fit for his game next season.
As the inevitable UK roster churn occurs in the coming weeks, Keels will be a player well worth watching.
Nolan Hickman’s rise
Future UK point guard Nolan Hickman has to be one of the better stories to come out of McDonald’s All-American selection day.
At the time of Hickman’s commitment to the Cats in August, he was generally seen in recruiting circles as a great fit for UK and a possible multiyear point guard for John Calipari, but his ranking was quite a bit lower than most Calipari point guard recruits.
Some behind the scenes thought he was under-ranked by the recruiting services, however, and a few trusted scouts even said at the time that he might end up being the best college point guard in the 2021 class.
Few probably would have predicted that he would emerge as a McDonald’s All-American just a few months later.
Hickman was ranked by Rivals.com as the No. 76 player in the class at the time of his UK pledge. (247Sports had recently bumped him up to No. 30 in the rankings, so there was some sign of his emergence as a possible elite-level recruit).
Since then, he’s transferred to Wasatch Academy in Utah — one of the country’s best high school programs — and has averaged 16.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game against one of the nation’s toughest schedules.
It would have been a blast to see Hickman go up against guards like Jaden Hardy, Hunter Sallis and Tennessee signee Kennedy Chandler during the always-competitive McDonald’s All-American practices. He won’t get that chance, since game-week activities have been canceled for the second consecutive year due to COVID-19.
Still, it’s clear that Hickman has earned his place among the best point guards in his class, and he’ll come to Lexington next season intent on competing for a starting spot with the Wildcats.
Bryce Hopkins snubbed?
Nolan Hickman and Daimion Collins made the McDonald’s All-American team — marking the 11th time in 13 recruiting cycles at Kentucky that John Calipari has recruited multiple McDonald’s selections — but fellow UK signee Bryce Hopkins was left off the list.
Obviously, only 24 players are chosen for the McDonald’s game. Not every great prospect can make it, and Hopkins is the No. 27 player in the 2021 composite rankings, so it wasn’t a huge shock that he was not selected.
Every player in the top 20 of those 247Sports composite rankings made the team.
The other four to make it were Hickman (No. 31), Michigan commitment Kobe Bufkin (No. 42), Mississippi commitment Daeshun Ruffin (No. 47) and Washington commitment Jackson Grant (No. 67).
Three of the players ranked No. 21 through No. 26 were ineligible to be selected for the McDonald’s Game, leaving just three other players — Nebraska commitment Bryce McGowens (No. 21), Florida State commitment Matthew Cleveland (No. 22) and Texas A&M commitment Manny Obaseki (No. 24) — ranked ahead of Hopkins and left out of the game.
It’s worth wondering whether the timing of Hopkins’ high school season contributed to his omission from the game. With the state of Illinois starting its basketball season late due to COVID-19 — Hopkins didn’t even make his season debut until Feb. 8 — the McDonald’s selection process would have been pretty much over before he even stepped on the court.
Over the past couple of weeks, Hopkins has put up terrific numbers — 20-and-10 double-doubles have been a regular occurrence — and he’s playing for a team that is expected to be among the best in the Chicago area.
If there had been a relatively universal start date for high school basketball, Hopkins very well could have worked his way onto that McDonald’s All-American roster. It was surely a disappointment to be left off, but it appears he has a bright basketball future ahead of him, nonetheless.
No. 1 recruit to Kentucky?
Dozens of new Crystal Ball predictions by some of the 247Sports network’s top analysts have been logged over the past couple of weeks, coinciding with the website’s “Crystal Ball Day” as well as other recent recruiting developments.
It’s been a mixed bag of good and bad news for Kentucky, but one major trend continues to go in the Wildcats’ favor.
UK remains the consensus favorite for point guard DJ Wagner, the unanimous No. 1 overall recruit in the 2023 class. That’s not surprising, given Wagner’s extensive ties to John Calipari, who coached his father, Dajuan Wagner, at Memphis and had his grandfather, Louisville great Milt Wagner, on his staff there. (Milt later served as an assistant coach under UK’s Tony Barbee for eight seasons at UTEP and Auburn).
Calipari continues to have a strong relationship with the Wagner family, and it’s been expected for a while now that DJ would ultimately play for Calipari if he ends up in college basketball. Given the trend of top recruits heading off to the G League and other professional avenues right after high school, Wagner playing college basketball could be a big if.
That’s why these early Crystal Ball picks have been so encouraging for Kentucky. 247Sports now gives analysts the option of predicting “Pro” for recruits, yet all of the picks so far on Wagner’s page are in favor of Kentucky, including predictions from Brian Snow and Dushawn London, who cover recruiting nationally for the website. London, specifically, logged a “Pro” prediction for UK target Jalen Duren the same day he made his Kentucky prediction for Wagner, who has also picked up some prominent pro-UK predictions on his Rivals.com page.
Wagner has two years of high school ball after this one, so it’s still early. But Kentucky continues to be seen as the most likely landing spot, and that’s great news for the Cats, who haven’t signed the nation’s consensus No. 1 recruit since Nerlens Noel in 2012.
Reed Sheppard’s ranking
247Sports recruiting analyst Travis Branham scouted North Laurel sophomore guard Reed Sheppard this week and told the Herald-Leader the following day that the in-state star “definitely fits the part of a top 75 prospect” in the 2023 class.
Those 247Sports rankings, which now include only 50 players, will be extended to 75 players on the next update. So, expect to see Sheppard’s name on that list.
Local fans might look at Sheppard’s on-court success this season — leading the state in scoring with 33.6 points per game, flirting with triple-doubles on a seemingly regular basis, shooting 40 percent from three-point range, and playing for one of the best teams in Kentucky — and say, “Well, duh — of course he’s a top 75 recruit nationally.”
But it’s not that simple.
While Sheppard’s stats are certainly eye-popping, they’re not one-of-a-kind when it comes to Kentucky high school basketball. Other recent players have put up huge numbers, but the reality is that success in the state doesn’t necessarily translate to success against high-major prospects nationally.
Sheppard hasn’t had an opportunity to prove himself against such players, but it’s looking like national recruiting analysts are starting to think he can hold his own against that level of competition. And that is unique for a Kentucky high school basketball player.
To put it another way, in the past 10 years only two Kentucky high school players who were actually from the state have ended up in the top 75 of the 247Sports composite rankings for their respective recruiting class. Only two. That would be Quentin Snider (No. 37 in 2014) and Ray Spalding (No. 42 in 2015), both ending up at Louisville.
Accomplished in-state recruits who didn’t reach that level nationally over that time period include players such as David Johnson, Derek Willis, Quentin Goodin, Kelan Martin, Justin Powell and Dontaie Allen, to name just a few.
That Sheppard — the son of former UK stars Jeff Sheppard and Stacey Reed — is being talked about as a possible player in that range nationally is truly special.
And he might not be alone in his class.
Fellow in-state sophomore Kaleb Glenn — a 6-6 wing at Male High School — is ranked No. 43 in the 2023 class by 247Sports, and he, too, is enjoying a stellar year, averaging 23.1 points and 13.7 rebounds over his first seven games for a team that entered the season ranked No. 1 in the state.
The 2023 class in Kentucky is shaping up as one of the most star-studded in years, and the national analysts are already paying attention.
