Kentucky’s newest recruit will be hard to keep off the court. ‘A do-everything kid.’
What’s seemed inevitable for months is now a reality.
Five-star recruit Cason Wallace — one of the top backcourt players in all of high school basketball — has announced his commitment to Kentucky.
Wallace — a 6-foot-4, 185-pound combo guard from Richardson, Texas — revealed the commitment on his 18th birthday Sunday night, picking the Wildcats over fellow finalists Tennessee, Texas and UT San Antonio, and ending a recruitment that has been pointing toward UK since even before the star prospect received a scholarship offer from the Cats.
Kentucky was often mentioned as the “dream school” for Wallace, who achieved five-star status by the start of his junior season before breaking out in a big way this past summer, earning most valuable player honors on the ultra-competitive Nike EYBL circuit and ultimately landing the UK offer based on those performances.
Once John Calipari made that move, he went all in on Wallace’s recruitment. Kentucky’s coaches took multiple trips to Texas to see him this fall after hosting Wallace and his family for an official visit to Lexington in late August. By then, the Cats had taken over as favorites.
Wallace’s summer showing catapulted him to the No. 7 spot in the 2022 class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, and he has the reputation as a two-way player who might just be the best perimeter defender in the country.
“Cason is a do-everything kid,” Richardson High head coach Kevin Lawson told the Herald-Leader. “He’s great on both ends of the floor. He takes the other team’s best player and takes that challenge and guards him. He’s a great rebounder. He’s a great facilitator. He’s got hands that I’ve always said have Stickum on them. He’ll just get a piece of the basketball, and it ends up in his hands.
“And being able to do everything on both ends turns him into the high recruit that he is. Going into his senior year, he just continues to get better, which is pretty amazing for how good he is and has been.”
Lawson said Wallace plans to sign with Kentucky on Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period. His addition moved UK past Duke for the No. 1 spot in the 2022 team recruiting rankings.
Wallace averaged 19.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game last high school season, leading Richardson to the state semifinals and earning second-team junior all-American honors from MaxPreps.com. In July, he led his Pro Skills team to 12 consecutive wins at the Nike Peach Jam event, averaging 15.2 points, 6.9 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game and shooting 36.5 percent from three-point range before losing to the eventual league champs in the quarterfinals. That was Pro Skills’ only loss of the tournament.
Texas high school basketball expert Ani Umana has followed Wallace closely throughout his prep career and said the new UK commitment played many roles on the grassroots circuit this past spring and summer, doing whatever his coaches asked on any given night and showing marked improvement along the way.
“I thought he was good over the first few months. I thought he was great at Peach Jam,” Umana told the Herald-Leader. “He showed a real level of separation in July. One thing I love about Cason is it’s all about winning for him. He’s going to do what it takes to win, and he’s not a kid that’s worried about stats. He’s worried about winning. So he’s always done things to help his team win. And that’s what people saw this summer.”
247Sports analyst Travis Branham said Wallace is “arguably the best on-ball defender in the class” and a player who can score from all three levels. He’s a good positional rebounder with a knack for coming up with boards and loose balls. He echoed the others’ comments that Wallace is a win-first player, and it showed this summer on the Nike circuit.
“That was the setting that shines a light on what he is and what he’s able to do,” Branham told the Herald-Leader. “That’s the perfect setting for him, because it’s super competitive, and he thrived in it. All of the things that he does that impact the win column shined throughout the whole Peach Jam.
“He’s a guy that has a toughness and a competitiveness about him that I think Coach Cal will love.”
Cason Wallace at Kentucky
Perhaps the best example of Wallace’s we-over-me approach is the fact that he would even commit to UK at all, under the current circumstances.
Kentucky already has commitments from five-star point guard Skyy Clark, five-star shooting guard Shaedon Sharpe, and five-star wing Chris Livingston. Clark is seen as one of the top playmakers in the class. Sharpe is ranked by every national recruiting service as the No. 1 overall prospect in the country. Livingston is a top-five recruit and likely NBA lottery pick.
All three of those players project to play on the perimeter at Kentucky, which could also return some talented guards from the current team for next season.
If Wallace had picked somewhere like Tennessee or Texas, he might have been the No. 1 backcourt option from day one. Instead, he’ll be one piece of a puzzle that features at least two more highly touted players.
“Cason doesn’t worry about that stuff,” Umana said. “He’s not a big social media guy. He’s not big on any of that stuff. He just knows that if he goes in and does what he’s supposed to do, then it’s all going to work out. He doesn’t get intimidated by that. He’ll look at Kentucky as a situation where he can win a national title with those guys, and he can play a big role.
“He’s so confident in what he does that he’s not worried about who’s there.”
If he plays defense the way pretty much everyone who’s followed his high school career thinks he can, Wallace will make it difficult for Calipari to keep him off the court for any extended period of time. No matter who else is on the team.
In addition to that defensive ability, Wallace can do a little bit of everything on the offensive end. Jonathan Givony, an NBA Draft analyst for ESPN, said Wallace might be the best point guard in the 2022 class after watching him at Peach Jam. The future Wildcat makes the right decisions with the ball in his hands and plays with a veteran’s feel for the game.
Wallace’s high school coach said his unselfishness was actually a knock on his game earlier in his high school career, with outside observers even thinking he couldn’t shoot from three-point range just because he often didn’t look to take those shots. In reality, he was just working to get his teammates more involved. He’s since proven himself to be an above-average outside shooter with a quick first step off the dribble and an ability to explode into the paint from there.
“The game happens slowly for him, compared to everybody else,” Lawson said of Wallace’s play, on both ends of the court. “He’s just always in control.”
Calipari has teased using a lineup of four players on the perimeter in the future, and Wallace’s commitment should give the UK coach ample opportunity to do that during the 2022-23 season. The beauty in Wallace’s game is that he can play on or off the ball offensively and be just as effective either way, while delivering lockdown defense on the other end.
Wallace might not be the most highly ranked of Kentucky’s recruits in this 2022 class, but Calipari might find him to be the most indispensable when the games get tough.
“He doesn’t need the basketball in his hands to showcase what he does,” Branham said. “There’s nothing flashy about him. He’s not going to go out there and wow you, breaking down guys off the bounce with combo moves and creating space and pulling up for jumpers. What he does works. He’s efficient, and he’s effective. It’s not sexy, but it gets the job done. And it results in wins at the end of the day.”
