The experts now think that No. 1 basketball recruit DJ Wagner is headed to Kentucky
For most of DJ Wagner’s high school career, the Kentucky Wildcats were viewed as the major — some said, can’t-miss — favorite to land his commitment.
Wagner, long ranked as the No. 1 recruit in the 2023 class, is the son of Dajuan Wagner, who was John Calipari’s original one-and-done at Memphis, and that family connection — along with the Kentucky coach’s impressive track record of developing point guards — put the Cats at the top of everyone’s prediction list when it came to the teenager’s recruitment. It certainly didn’t hurt when Wagner’s stepbrother, Kareem Watkins, joined the UK program as a walk-on two years ago.
And then Louisville hired Kenny Payne, another longtime friend of the Wagner family, as its head coach. And then the Cards hired Milt Wagner, the grandfather of DJ and a U of L great, in a support staff role for Payne’s program. And then the predictions started rolling in for the Cards.
The degree of confidence in those predictions varied. Some said Kentucky still had a chance. Some said he was a stone-cold lock to Louisville. But every public prediction from a prominent recruiting analyst said the same thing: Wagner would be a Cardinal.
Yet, that entire time, the word coming out of UK’s camp never wavered. It was clear that Calipari — and plenty of others within the Wildcats’ program — were sure Wagner would ultimately side with them. Somebody was going to be wrong. And lots of people were going to be upset.
On Friday, those analyst predictions swung back in Kentucky’s direction.
247Sports analyst Travis Branham, who scouted Wagner earlier in the week at a FIBA event in Spain — and interviewed him there — rescinded his Crystal Ball prediction for Louisville. “The race with Kentucky has become too cloudy,” tweeted Branham, who has told the Herald-Leader a few times over the past several weeks that he thought the Cats still had a legit shot.
On3.com national analyst Jamie Shaw wrote just two weeks ago that “intel from around the situation says the Wagner recruitment has been done for a few weeks” and that Louisville was the pick. On Friday, he changed his prediction from U of L to Kentucky, not only making the switch but putting a whopping “95 percent” confidence level on the new pick.
“With this recruitment wrapped up, intel suggests a public commitment from Wagner could come during Peach Jam,” Shaw wrote in his newest post Friday night.
Nike’s Peach Jam event is set for July 17-24 in North Augusta, S.C.
Around the same time Friday, national analysts from Rivals.com — Rob Cassidy and Travis Graf — both switched their FutureCast predictions from Louisville to Kentucky.
Cassidy spoke to the Herald-Leader earlier this week and acknowledged that Kentucky’s confidence level in this recruitment could not be ignored. “I reserve the right to change that prediction,” he added.
And now he has indeed changed that prediction, along with just about everyone else who usually ends up correct in these cases.
“I thought I knew,” Cassidy said earlier this week. “I thought it was Louisville. But I don’t know if I think that anymore. … Usually Kentucky isn’t (wrong). And they think they got him.”
And now others are clearly starting to believe the Cats are correct.
