Kentucky basketball mailbag: How is UK looking for the next recruiting cycle?
.jpg "DJ Wagner visited Kentucky for Big Blue Madness in October. One of the other recruiting guests that weekend was Reed Sheppard.")
Last week, we asked for your questions on the Kentucky men’s basketball program and its recruiting efforts. The first part of the mailbag series answering those questions was posted earlier this week, leading with what the Wildcats might do if star recruit Shaedon Sharpe turns pro after this season.
Here’s part two, taking a closer look at Kentucky recruiting.
What is the outlook for the 2023 class?
After a flurry of action in the fall — with several star 2023 recruits taking official visits to Lexington and ending up with UK scholarship offers — there hasn’t been much movement this winter.
That’s understandable. John Calipari is concentrating on this season’s team. And those high school juniors on UK’s radar have their own seasons to occupy their time. My expectation is that once we get to April — when the grassroots evaluation periods begin — we’ll get a much better sense for how Kentucky is doing with its top 2023 targets.
Still, there’s plenty to talk about for the time being.
The Cats already have a commitment from in-state legacy recruit Reed Sheppard, who has risen to the No. 17 spot in both the 247Sports and Rivals.com rankings.
Calipari has extended scholarship offers to seven additional juniors — a relatively large number, by his standards, at this stage in a recruiting cycle — and all seven of those players were ranked in the top 11 on the new Rivals.com list that was released last week.
Let’s start with combo guard DJ Wagner, who dropped to No. 3 in the new Rivals rankings but is still No. 1 on the 247Sports and ESPN lists. Wagner — son of former Calipari star Dajuan Wagner and grandson of Louisville great Milt Wagner — remains the top guard in the class, by all accounts. Asking around in recent days, I was told that Kentucky is still very much the team to beat for Wagner. His recruitment doesn’t have an end date on it, but it’s getting difficult to envision the Cats losing out on his commitment.
Wagner’s AAU teammate, small forward Mackenzie Mgbako, moved to No. 2 in the new Rivals rankings, and those two New Jersey stars visited UK together for Big Blue Madness. There’s been some pro-Kentucky buzz around Mgbako in recruiting circles over the past few weeks, but I was told last week that Duke is still in the driver’s seat there. He’ll certainly be among the top players to watch this spring, though.
Montverde (Fla.) forward Kwame Evans Jr. is No. 2 in both the 247Sports and ESPN rankings, but his recruitment has been tough to sort out at this point. Same goes for Brewster (N.H.) wing Matas Buzelis, who is No. 4 on the 247Sports list with no clear favorites having yet emerged.
Wing player Mookie Cook is ranked top five by all of the major recruiting services. There’s a lot of 2022 reclassification chatter around him, with Oregon, Kentucky and possibly the G League viewed as the top options.
Kentucky looked to be in a very good spot with wing Justin Edwards (No. 8 in the new Rivals rankings) in the fall, but that recruitment has been quiet as of late. He’s another big one to watch in the April recruiting periods.
And then there’s Chicago native JJ Taylor — yet another wing — at No. 11 in the Rivals rankings. UK looked to be in a good spot for Taylor, but his move away from Chicago — and a program with very close connections to Chin Coleman — to a new prep school backed by Kanye West has clouded that recruitment.
Just as interesting to watch this spring will be who else Calipari decides to offer for 2023.
South Carolina power forward GG Jackson is the new No. 1 player on the Rivals.com list. That’s largely been a Duke-North Carolina battle to this point, but maybe UK jumps in and sees what happens?
Texas forward Ron Holland is certainly one to watch for a UK scholarship offer. The Cats have shown some interest there, and he’s quickly emerging as one of the top players in the class.
Kentucky has shown pretty heavy interest in two 2023 centers — Baye Fall and Isaiah Miranda — and it’ll be pretty surprising if at least one of those recruits doesn’t have a UK offer a few months from now.
And then there’s always a surprise or two over the course of the AAU season. With all of the talented options and seemingly still-wide-open recruitments, this should be one of the most intriguing cycles for tracking Kentucky targets in years.
With so many similar wing players in 2023, has Cal settled in on any sort of hierarchy of preferences?
I think the hierarchy at this point is: if you have a Kentucky scholarship offer and you want to commit, go ahead and claim your spot.
This 2023 class is absolutely loaded with elite wings. Kentucky has extended offers to Mackenzie Mgbako, Mookie Cook, Matas Buzelis, Justin Edwards and JJ Taylor, and some view Kwame Evans Jr. as a bigger player in that position group if he can continue to hone some of his away-from-the-basket skills. All of those players are ranked in the top-10 nationally by at least one major recruiting service. That’s a pretty amazing collection of talent.
So, it seems that if any of those players were to call John Calipari up tomorrow with a commitment, the UK coach would gladly accept the pledge.
Now, things are sure to get a little more sorted out starting with the April evaluation periods.
Cook might be the biggest one to watch in the near future, due to all of that reclassification buzz surrounding him. He visited UK in the fall and was on Oregon’s campus over the weekend. It sounds like he’s likely to hit even more college campuses in the coming weeks, but this is shaping up as a Kentucky/Oregon/pros battle. So, Cook might be out of this 2023 wing conversation soon enough, if he does indeed opt to reclassify.
Mgbako might be separating himself a bit as the top wing in the class, and I’d expect Kentucky to stay in hot pursuit into the summer, even with all of the Duke buzz that still surrounds his recruitment.
Buzelis, Evans and Taylor are all difficult to handicap at this point. It’s just hard to even name a group of true frontrunners for any of those players, let alone a favorite. (To that point, there are no Crystal Ball picks yet for any of the three). All of those players also have very different skill sets, and it will be worth watching how they progress over the next few months.
Edwards is an especially intriguing case. There was a lot of chatter about Kentucky being a “dream school” of sorts before he landed the Wildcats scholarship offer in November. Since then, it’s been crickets.
But that’s not abnormal. Things have a way of quieting down — when it comes to recruiting — during the high school season, and that’s especially true with guys like Edwards who aren’t constantly providing updates via social media and other avenues.
The 6-foot-7 prospect from Philadelphia seems like a perfect fit for Calipari — a true five-star talent with a very high floor and the reputation of someone who could pretty seamlessly transition into a complementary impact role as a freshman, often a difficult adjustment for players used to being the center of attention. I’d expect him to remain a major Kentucky target, if his level of play and team-first approach to the game continues.
As for an overall hierarchy, there’s likely to be some separation on this list — and possibly some new names — once Calipari gets out there in April and has a chance to watch these players compete side by side on the court.
Do you see any big man targets that might reclass?
The two big men in the 2023 class who have been the most linked to Kentucky so far — Baye Fall and Isaiah Miranda — have also been the subject of reclassification speculation.
Now, there’s a long way to go before that speculation would become reality, and it’s important to point out that there’s been nothing concrete from either camp that Fall or Miranda is leaning in that direction.
Most importantly here, I’m not sure how much could be expected of either player next college season.
Fall — a near-7-footer playing in Denver — is a top-notch shot-blocker and rebounder with an offensive game that is still rounding into form. He’s the No. 13 player in Rivals’ new 2023 rankings.
Miranda — a 7-footer from Rhode Island — is a high-ceiling prospect who is still relatively raw. He’s shown brilliant flashes this season, but there are still plenty of questions about his game. He’s ranked No. 31 by 247Sports and No. 37 by Rivals.com.
Fall hasn’t even visited Kentucky yet. Miranda visited Lexington in late December, but he left town without a scholarship offer. John Calipari and Orlando Antigua have watched him play several times this season, yet they obviously want to see more before that offer comes.
Both of these players are intriguing talents, but neither appears to be the type of can’t-miss prospect that could come to college basketball a year earlier than expected and make a major impact. Miranda, especially, has been billed as a player whose best playing days are well into the future.
And the track record with post players in similar spots hasn’t been great recently.
Not long ago, Jalen Duren was ranked as the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2022 class. He reclassified to 2021 and enrolled at Memphis, where he’s been good — 11.3 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.2 blocks per game — but not the game-changing talent that many expected. (CBS Sports didn’t even have him on its most recent top 10 freshmen of the season list).
Moussa Cisse and N’Faly Dante were two other five-star bigs on Kentucky’s recruiting radar recently. Both decided to reclassify. Both were ranked higher at that time than Fall or Miranda are now. Both have struggled mightily — relative to those lofty expectations — so far in college.
Cisse averaged 6.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game as a freshman at Memphis before transferring to Oklahoma State, where he’s averaging 6.8 points and 5.7 rebounds this season.
Dante is in his third season at Oregon. So far, his best statistical season came last year, when he averaged 8.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per game.
Neither is ranked among the top 100 NBA Draft prospects for this year, according to ESPN.
This is all to say that — even if Fall or Miranda reclassified and ultimately picked Kentucky — it would be a stretch to expect a ton of production during the 2022-23 season. UK is likely to need someone to fill a major role next season, and it’s simply difficult for young post players to come in right away and star at the college level.
The Cats should have Lance Ware and Daimion Collins back, but Oscar Tshiebwe is probably headed to the pros, and that will obviously open up a major hole in the paint.
I’d expect Kentucky to head back to the transfer portal in search of a player to fill that role next season.
