Kentucky basketball coaches back on the recruiting trail. Here’s who they’ll visit.
Two days after landing the No. 1-ranked high school basketball prospect in the country, Kentucky’s coaches hit the road for the start of the fall recruiting period, the next step in a process that could deliver a superclass to Lexington.
Starting Thursday, college coaches are permitted to meet with recruits for in-home and in-school visits, the first time such trips have been allowed since the NCAA halted off-campus recruiting in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That means John Calipari and his revamped coaching staff will be plenty busy in the coming days.
The Herald-Leader confirmed Wednesday that UK’s coaches will meet with four major recruits from the 2022 class — Adem Bona, Dereck Lively II, Chris Livingston and Cason Wallace — in the opening days of this new recruiting period.
The Wildcats already have pledges from five-star point guard Skyy Clark, who committed to Kentucky last October, and five-star shooting guard Shaedon Sharpe, who recently ascended to the No. 1 ranking in the 2022 class and revealed his commitment to UK on Tuesday night.
Calipari clearly has designs on more recruiting victories in this cycle, and it’s not unrealistic to think that UK could ultimately land all four of the uncommitted 2022 stars on this week’s visit list.
Kentucky’s coach will get to deploy his new band of assistants for the first time since assembling the current staff. Orlando Antigua and Chin Coleman, who UK hired from Illinois this offseason, and Jai Lucas, who came to Lexington from Texas last year, will all be out on the recruiting trail starting Thursday, too.
All three assistant coaches have spoken at various points throughout the offseason of their eagerness to get back in front of high school players and their families in person. They were all at recruiting events this summer, but those trips were for evaluations only. No in-person contact was permitted.
So this will be the next step — in some cases, the final step — in Kentucky’s pursuit of its top remaining 2022 targets. They’ve built relationships via phone calls and video meetings for the past several months. Lively, Livingston and Wallace have all been on UK’s campus this summer for official visits, their only opportunities until now to meet with Calipari and his staff in person. (Bona is due in Lexington for his official visit next month).
The meetings over the next few days will be just as important, and Calipari spoke this week of his optimism regarding the players Kentucky has zeroed in on for this 2022 class. He reiterated that he doesn’t promise starting spots or specific roles during the recruiting process, and he implied that he and his coaching staff have weeded out the potential targets that didn’t fit his vision for what Kentucky basketball should be.
The players UK’s coaches meet with this week are the ones they want to be a part of next season’s team.
“My hope is kids want to come here because of the culture we built, which is competitive environment, other really good players, learning to be a great teammate, betting on yourself, being responsible for you, being in the greatest shape of your life where someone else is playing,” Calipari said Tuesday. “You’ve got to come in here and fight, which means, when you leave (for the pros), that’s why our guys do so well. They learned to fight. They weren’t guaranteed anything. They had to take what they wanted. They had to bet on themselves.
“I see that we’re involved with the right guys.”
Kentucky’s top 2022 targets
The momentum is clearly on Kentucky’s side going into these visits.
The commitment from Sharpe on Tuesday night was a huge one, both for the program’s future and as a signal to other star prospects and rival programs that UK is still at the top of the college basketball food chain, despite some recent recruiting losses and a disastrous 2020-21 season.
As of now, the Wildcats are viewed as the favorites for both Livingston and Wallace, and they appear to be at the top of the list for both Bona and Lively.
Lively — a 7-2 center from Pennsylvania — will be a day one stop Thursday for Calipari, who has clearly been prioritizing the highly versatile post player as his top frontcourt target in the 2022 class. While Sharpe is now No. 1 in all of the recruiting rankings that have been updated since the July evaluation periods, Lively is either No. 2 or No. 3 on each of those lists, and he’s arguably the 2022 prospect with the most long-term potential.
Prevailing wisdom says UK and Duke are the two frontrunners for Lively’s commitment, which is expected to be announced in November. Duke’s coaches will visit with Lively on Saturday, and he’s also expected to host meetings with Michigan and Penn State this weekend.
Livingston has narrowed his recruitment to four schools — Georgetown, Kentucky, Memphis and Tennessee State — and was long considered to be a Memphis lean, though UK has taken all of the momentum in that recruitment.
The 6-6 wing from Akron recently postponed his recruiting visit to Memphis — after taking an official visit to Lexington this summer — and it’s possible he won’t take that trip at all before a commitment, which is currently planned for Oct. 15.
Livingston recently transferred to Oak Hill Academy (Va.), which has produced several UK players in the past under legendary high school coach Steve Smith, most recently Keldon Johnson from the Wildcats’ 2018-19 team.
Wallace — a 6-foot-4 combo guard from Richardson, Texas — has narrowed his list to UK, Tennessee and Texas, and the Wildcats have emerged as huge favorites in his recruitment over the past few weeks. Kentucky hosted Wallace and his family for an official visit late last month. He is planning to announce a commitment Nov. 7, though a pledge could come before that date.
Bona — a 7-footer from Nigeria — now plays for Prolific Prep (Calif.) after moving to the United States last year. He earned a UK scholarship offer last month and is scheduled to take official visits to Kentucky, Baylor, Kansas and UCLA this fall.
Though Lively has been viewed as UK’s top frontcourt target, there is a chance that the Wildcats could land both Bona and Lively in this 2022 class. Calipari has successfully recruited multiple star big men in the same class before, and he’ll surely point out to any skeptics that his vaunted 38-1 team featured Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein and Dakari Johnson all making major contributions.
Bona and Wallace haven’t been shy about their adoration for Kentucky’s program during the recruiting process, leading analysts to label UK as the team to beat for both players before scholarship offers were even extended.
Livingston has ties to UK through an aunt, Lisa, who ran track for the Wildcats, still lives in Lexington, and accompanied the star player on his official visit. Lively’s mother was actually on staff with the Philadelphia 76ers when Calipari was an assistant coach there, and she gave a glowing review of the official visit to Kentucky in a recent interview with the Herald-Leader.
The groundwork is there for one of Calipari’s greatest recruiting classes ever.
Now, it’s closing time.
“The kids that we’re talking to, most cases, have said their dream was to play here for me,” Calipari said this week. “You know what, we’ve just got to hope that they’re not talked out of it.”
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
