Kentucky passes Duke for No. 1 basketball recruiting ranking. Can the Cats hold on?
This much we know: both Kentucky and Duke will have stellar basketball recruiting classes for the 2022 cycle.
For John Calipari and the Wildcats, it’ll be a return to recruiting rarefied air. Four five-star recruits, three of them consensus top-10 national players, and one — shooting guard Shaedon Sharpe — widely considered to be the No. 1 prospect in all of high school basketball.
For Jon Scheyer and the Blue Devils, it’s a positive sign — and a warning shot to rivals — that Duke’s recruiting greatness will extend beyond the Mike Krzyzewski era, that the program will still battle for the very best prospects in the country even after the Hall of Fame coach retires at the end of this season.
But who will ultimately land the No. 1 class in the 2022 cycle? That remains to be seen.
Kentucky pulled back ahead in that race Sunday night with the commitment of five-star combo guard Cason Wallace, the No. 7 overall prospect in the class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, and the third top-10 player to join UK for the 2022-23 season. With Wallace, Sharpe and wing Chris Livingston (No. 6 nationally), it’s the first time that the Wildcats have landed three top-10 commitments in the same cycle since the 2013 class headed by Julius Randle and the Harrison twins.
UK also has a commitment from No. 17-ranked Skyy Clark for 2022, and all four of Kentucky’s recruits for next season are planning to officially sign with the Wildcats on Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period for 2022 recruits.
Before Wallace’s commitment, Duke held the No. 1 team ranking for the 2022 cycle, and the Blue Devils also have a four-player recruiting class for next season. For the moment.
While Kentucky is likely finished pursuing players from the 2022 class — no uncommitted prospect from that group holds a UK scholarship offer — Duke still has some options.
And that’s why the battle for the No. 1 spot is still up for grabs.
Duke’s recruiting options
As of now, it looks like there are a couple of ways that the Blue Devils can pull back ahead of the Wildcats and secure that No. 1 recruiting ranking.
Going into the early signing period, Duke has commitments from center Dereck Lively II (the No. 2 player in the 247Sports composite rankings), small forward Dariq Whitehead (No. 5), combo forward Kyle Filipowski (No. 8) and sharp-shooting guard Jaden Scutt (No. 56).
That puts them just a tad behind Kentucky in 247Sports’ team scoring system: the Cats now have 70.00 points, and the Blue Devils have 69.78. (Arkansas, Kansas and Southern Cal are next in line, but there doesn’t appear to be any realistic path for any of those teams to move into the top two).
The bad news for Duke is there’s not much top-tier talent left in this class.
Wallace’s commitment left just two players in the top 20 of the composite rankings uncommitted — big man Yohan Traore (No. 10) and small forward Mark Mitchell (No. 16) — and only six other players in the top 50 are still undecided on their college destination, with the early signing period just two days away.
The good news for Duke is that they’re in good with one of those players.
Mitchell — a 6-foot-8 prospect from Kansas — is widely expected to choose either Duke or UCLA in the coming weeks. If Mitchell picks the Blue Devils, they would move back ahead of Kentucky at the top of the recruiting rankings.
The other good news for Duke is that — while Coach K is leaving at the end of this season — all of the program’s 2022 recruiting efforts have gone forward with the understanding that Scheyer would be the coach of the team next season. All four of Duke’s commitments have picked the Blue Devils knowing that Scheyer, not Krzyzewski, would be their coach, and Mitchell will obviously be making his decision with that knowledge, as well.
Even if Mitchell picks UCLA, the Blue Devils have a path to the No. 1 spot.
Duke has an early commitment from class of 2023 point guard Caleb Foster — the No. 9 overall player in that group — and Foster has acknowledged publicly that he is considering a reclassification to 2022. The Blue Devils don’t have a point guard in their 2022 class, and if Foster makes that move it would be enough to move Duke past Kentucky and into the No. 1 position.
Of course, Kentucky could also get a late reclassification. The Wildcats have now extended scholarship offers to each of the top five players in the 2023 class, among others in that group, and — while none of UK’s 2023 targets have yet been strongly linked to reclassification talk — recent history has shown that we should expect at least a couple of the top players in each class to make that move.
The Cats hold the edge for now, but it might be months until this battle is finished.
Either way, both Kentucky and Duke look like they’ll be Final Four contenders yet again in 2023.
