DJ Wagner and other Kentucky basketball takeaways from Nike recruiting event in Louisville
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UK basketball recruiting updates
Ben Roberts and Cameron Drummond of the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are producing several stories and videos analyzing last weekend’s Nike EYBL basketball recruiting showcase in Louisville. Click below to access all of their coverage this week.
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The Nike EYBL was in Louisville over the holiday weekend, bringing most of Kentucky’s top basketball recruiting targets to the state.
College coaches weren’t allowed to attend the event, since it fell outside the NCAA’s evaluation periods, but there was still plenty of intrigue on the sidelines to go along with the action on the court.
Here are some takeaways from the Nike stop, with notes on some of the top UK targets in attendance.
DJ Wagner and Louisville
The scene for DJ Wagner’s first game of the Nike showcase Saturday morning was unique, even by AAU basketball standards, with more than a dozen former and current Louisville Cardinals stationed just behind the New Jersey Scholars bench area to see the most-talked-about recruit in the 2023 class.
When college coaches are permitted to attend these events, there’s as much importance on them being seen by the recruits as there is on them actually watching and evaluating the players. Those coaches want to make sure that the prospects they’re most interested in — and the parents of those prospects — know they’re in attendance, that they’re taking the time on these busy and hectic weekends to be courtside for those players’ games.
So the visual Saturday morning was made even more striking by the absence of college coaches. Among those in attendance were several of Milt Wagner’s former U of L teammates, including Darrell Griffith, Jerry Eaves, Herbert Crook, Wiley Brown, Will Olliges, Robbie Valentine and Pervis Ellison (the Scholars’ team director). There were plenty of other former Cardinals, as well as a few players on the current roster. There was also plenty of red in the crowd.
They were all there to watch DJ Wagner, grandson of Milt Wagner, who was hired earlier in the week as a new member of Louisville’s basketball staff. Of course, the new head coach of the Cards is Kenny Payne, a friend and former teammate to many of the U of L alumni in attendance Saturday, including Ellison and Wagner.
Payne, obviously, was not allowed to be in the gym for the Nike games, but there’s no way his presence could have made any more clear just how much Louisville wants DJ Wagner, who has spent nearly all of his high school career ranked as the No. 1 recruit in the 2023 class.
When the game was finished, Wagner made a lengthy trek through the Kentucky Exposition Center to the parking lot outside, followed by a throng of (mostly) U of L fans, stopping every so often to pose for photos. Once outside the building, he ran into Griffith — the Cards’ all-time leading scorer — for a quick chat. The Louisville great returned later in the weekend to watch Wagner some more, as did others associated with the program’s glory days.
All told, it was a pretty amazing display of affection, and — while this recruitment isn’t over yet, with Kentucky still in the picture — it was a scene that the younger Wagner appeared to relish.
Advantage Louisville?
Some Kentucky basketball fans were clearly upset upon hearing about the heavy hometown contingent in red and black at the Kentucky Exposition Center, especially as it relates to Wagner’s recruitment.
Sure, it was a situation that played in favor of the Cardinals, but there were also plenty of Kentucky fans on the sidelines for the three-day event. Current UK forward Lance Ware was there to see Wagner and fellow Kentucky target Aaron Bradshaw, basically sitting on the New Jersey Scholars bench for the Saturday night game. (Ware is a former teammate of Wagner, and Pervis Ellison was his basketball mentor in high school).
The Wildcats also had a home game of sorts on the Nike travel schedule back in 2015, when the circuit gave one of the EYBL stops to Lexington. On that weekend, UK was just a few weeks removed from its 38-1 season, and recognizable star players like Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Willie Cauley-Stein and Tyler Ulis stationed themselves on courts where major Kentucky recruiting targets were playing. Past UK greats like Kenny Walker and Julius Randle were also there.
De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and PJ Washington were among the at-the-time uncommitted recruits playing in that event.
Good news for Kentucky?
Louisville clearly has the momentum in the DJ Wagner recruitment, but it sure sounds like Kentucky is going to be getting another incredibly talented guard in the near future.
Five-star combo guard Robert Dillingham declined to give any interviews over the weekend. He later told the Herald-Leader that there would be an announcement coming soon, and he didn’t want to talk publicly about his recruitment because of that. Sure enough, a short while later, it was revealed that Dillingham would be announcing his college decision June 24.
That should be good news for the Wildcats.
UK was looking like the favorite for Dillingham in the days leading up to the Nike event, and his decision to reveal his college choice — and decline interviews in the meantime — as that buzz is growing could be seen as an indication that this recruitment might indeed be over.
Kentucky would love to add Dillingham and Wagner to its 2023 guard class that already includes in-state star Reed Sheppard, and that’s still possible. But, if the Cats do miss on Wagner, they could be getting a player just as good in Dillingham, especially from a scoring perspective. The 6-2 combo guard from North Carolina is arguably the most gifted bucket-getter in the 2023 class.
Bradshaw breaks out
The Saturday night showcase game produced one of the best AAU basketball environments in recent years, with a matchup of DJ Wagner vs. Bronny James drawing a majority of those in the building to one court. Fans started jockeying for seats a full two hours before the scheduled tip time, and the standing-room only areas were more than 10 people deep when the game started.
Wagner played pretty well, while James — the son of LeBron James — struggled offensively.
The star of the night was actually Aaron Bradshaw, a high-upside 7-footer whose talent and potential have had recruiting analysts buzzing this spring. There’s talk that he could be the No. 1 center in the 2023 class, and he sure looked the part Saturday night, going for 21 points and 11 rebounds while proving to be efficient from the field (8-for-11 on field goals), active on the court, and disruptive on the defensive end.
It was a marvelous performance for a player with relatively little experience in organized basketball. Bradshaw, who is a high school and AAU teammate of Wagner, played only a handful of games as a freshman and sophomore, so this past season was the first time he’s played a full schedule.
Kentucky extended a scholarship offer in April, and the word in recruiting circles is that the Wildcats will be one of the teams to beat — and perhaps the favorite — to land his commitment.
Buzelis impresses
Another eye-catcher over the weekend was 6-10 wing Matas Buzelis, who visited Kentucky in December and was one of the first players in the 2023 class to earn a UK scholarship offer.
Buzelis — a Chicago native playing for Brewster Academy (N.H.) — competes for Expressions Elite on the Nike circuit and showcased his versatile game during the Louisville stop. At 6-10, he’s a true perimeter player with exceptional ball skills and an unselfish approach to the game that features a knack for passing and next-level floor vision. He’s also a capable outside shooter, a skill that was on display at times during the weekend.
Particularly impressive was the pace at which Buzelis played the game, never getting sped up with the ball in his hands, despite constant pressure, and more often than not making the right play while running the halfcourt offense.
John Calipari hasn’t had a player quite like him at Kentucky, but the UK coach is clearly making him a priority in this 2023 class. 247Sports analyst Travis Branham labeled Kentucky as the early team to beat in Buzelis’ recruitment, and assistant coach Chin Coleman has been keeping tabs on him dating back to his time on the Illinois staff.
Buzelis is the No. 7 overall player in the new 247Sports rankings.
A rankings drop
Missing from the court this past weekend was JJ Taylor, a Chicago native and longtime Kentucky target who had been competing for the Mac Irvin Fire program that UK’s Chin Coleman coached before getting into college basketball.
Coleman has been recruiting Taylor since he was in middle school, and that tie made Kentucky an early favorite for his commitment when Coleman made the move to Lexington last year. At that time, the 6-8 wing was a consensus top-10 player in the 2023 class. His stock has dropped considerably since then.
Taylor transferred to the upstart Donda Academy (Calif.) — the prep school backed by Kanye West — this past season, and reviews of his game over the past few months have not been kind. In the most recent 247Sports rankings update, Taylor fell to No. 33 overall.
This past weekend, Taylor’s name was crossed out on the game roster for Mac Irvin Fire, and his jersey number was issued to another player. The Herald-Leader was told by a program official that Taylor had taken a “leave” from the team earlier in the week.
How good is 2023?
The chatter coming from recruiting analysts over the past several months has been that this 2023 class is below par, talent-wise, compared to other recent groups.
That was pretty evident over the weekend.
Obviously, there are plenty of talented prospects in this group, and the top players of the 2023 class still have another year of high school to make further strides in their game before getting to college.
It’s also important to point out that the recruits in this group have had some key stages of their development cut out from under them. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was practically no travel basketball of any kind in 2020, when these kids were rising sophomores. Many players in this class had high school seasons abbreviated or canceled completely due to the pandemic, and last year’s grassroots schedule was also altered.
Whether or not that has had an effect on what’s happening on the court is impossible to know for sure, but those gaps in competitive opportunities can’t have helped these players from a developmental standpoint.
No recruiting class is created equal, and, for now, it seems that this one is a notch or two below the norm. That’s not great news for programs that might end up relying heavily on high school recruits when it’s time to build rosters for the 2023-24 season.
Taking it slow with 2024?
In talking to the top recruits from the 2024 class — and those familiar with their situations — a common theme emerged: Kentucky isn’t involved too deeply with many of them.
Three of the best rising juniors on the Nike circuit are Naas Cunningham, Tre Johnson and Karter Knox, and none of those players told the Herald-Leader about any kind of extensive recent contact with representatives of the Wildcats.
That’s a bit of a surprise, since Cunningham is the No. 1 player in the class, Johnson is ranked No. 3 nationally and Knox is a top-10 recruit who just happens to be the younger brother of former UK star Kevin Knox.
Cunningham’s father said they haven’t heard anything from the Wildcats so far. Johnson’s father said they haven’t been in contact with Kentucky since Jai Lucas, who had been the lead recruiter, left UK for Duke a few weeks ago. And Knox, while praising the Wildcats’ program and his brother’s time there, didn’t mention any kind of full-court press from the Cats thus far.
John Calipari is well-known as a wait-and-see kind of coach when it comes to extensive contact with younger recruits, but it seemed recently like he had switched gears and put more of an emphasis on getting to know those prospects — and letting them get to know Kentucky — earlier in the process. It doesn’t seem like that’s been the case with this 2024 class.
Perhaps that changes in a couple of weeks. June 15 is coming up, and that’s the annual date on the recruiting calendar when college coaches are allowed to directly contact recruits from the rising junior class. Expect Calipari and his assistant coaches to make some calls once that date rolls around.
This story was originally published May 31, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
