Kentucky basketball missed on Caleb Wilson. What’s the next recruiting move for UK?
Kentucky basketball has to go back to the drawing board in order to try and round out its 2025 recruiting class.
Head coach Mark Pope and the Wildcats signed three high school prospects — left-handed guards Jasper Johnson and Acaden Lewis, as well as center Malachi Moreno — to their 2025 recruiting class during the November early signing period.
But it’s been quiet since then for UK, with a notable miss on the recruiting trail occurring this week. Early Friday morning, five-star power forward Caleb Wilson — who is ranked as the No. 6 national recruit in the 2025 class by the 247Sports Composite — committed to North Carolina over UK. Wilson also considered Ohio State as a finalist in his recruitment.
Wilson’s recruitment was a neck-and-neck battle down the stretch between UK and UNC, although it was reported Friday that Wilson had made up his mind by the end of December.
Losing out on Wilson — a 6-foot-9 prospect with significant defensive chops and offensive upside — is a blow to Pope and the Wildcats, especially since UK was considered the favorite to land Wilson after he took an official recruiting visit to Lexington in September.
With Wilson now out of the picture and on his way to Chapel Hill, what’s next for UK basketball recruiting?
Nate Ament is the top-ranked recruit still available for UK
As far as the 2025 high school recruiting class goes, UK’s focus now shifts toward Nate Ament, a 6-foot-10 power forward from Virginia.
Ranked by the 247Sports Composite as a five-star prospect and as the No. 4 national recruit in the 2025 class, Ament has included UK in his top-11 list of schools. This month, Ament announced that he is still considering the following college programs: Alabama, Arkansas, BYU, Duke, Georgetown, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Texas.
Ament’s recruitment has included official visits to Louisville (October), Notre Dame (November), Tennessee (October) and Texas (September).
On Thursday, Louisville coach Pat Kelsey and assistant Thomas Carr went to Virginia to meet with Ament.
There had been plans for Ament to take an official recruiting visit to Kentucky last August, but those never materialized. Pope and the UK coaching staff extended a scholarship offer to Ament in June.
Pope and his coaching staff have had several live viewings of Ament in action, including over the summer on the Adidas grassroots circuit in South Carolina and at the FIBA Under-18 AmeriCup in Argentina. Ament was teammates with Johnson on the United States’ gold-medal winning AmeriCup squad.
In December, Ament indicated to ESPN that he was hoping to take a visit to Kentucky in February, along with planned visits to watch Duke host North Carolina on Feb. 1 and Kansas State host Arizona on Feb. 11.
“Mark Pope has been here a few times. He’s a high-energy coach. He pours that into his players,” Ament told ESPN last month. “Watching his team, he puts his players in position to succeed. Their spacing is so good. It’s a very appealing system, and coach Pope is such a high-character person. You feel his energy.”
Ament — who was first recruited by Pope when he was at BYU — didn’t mention an upcoming visit to Kentucky when he spoke to 247Sports this month following a game at the Hoophall Classic in Massachusetts. Ament said during that discussion with 247Sports that he would be looking to commit in February or March.
MassLive reported from the Hoophall Classic that Ament may also take a visit to a third school, in addition to Duke and Kansas State, before his recruitment concludes.
“Player development and the family aspect of the team,” Ament told MassLive about what will matter to him when making a college commitment. “Those are really the biggest two, just making sure that wherever I go, I’m taken care of. And all the schools I have, I know I’m going to be taken care of, but just who I have the best relationship with, who’s going to put me in positions to challenge me to get better and who’s going to let me play through my mistakes?”
Ament is the highest-ranked recruit in the 2025 class who is yet to commit to a school.
Mark Pope can recruit internationally and through NCAA transfer portal
Other avenues exist for Pope and his coaching staff as Kentucky looks to fill out its 2025-26 roster.
Let’s start with the space available. Seven players from this season’s Kentucky roster are set to be out of NCAA eligibility at season’s end. The only current UK scholarship players who will still have eligibility after this season are guards Collin Chandler, Otega Oweh and Travis Perry, forward Trent Noah and center Brandon Garrison.
There’s the possibility that other UK players could take advantage of a potential fifth year of eligibility from the NCAA, if the organization opts to give a fifth year to all athletes, as has been speculated. This remains only a possibility, at this point.
Regardless, the Cats will have plenty of space to take on players for the 2025-26 season.
In addition to traditional high school basketball recruiting pathways, Pope and UK could opt to pursue some international prospects. For example, UK has been linked to Or Ashkenazi, an Israeli basketball player who is considering playing college basketball.
Ashkenazi is expected to take visits to potential college destinations in February.
Of course, Kentucky also figures to be a major player in the NCAA transfer portal during the offseason. Pope used the portal to great effect last year, albeit out of necessity after he inherited a UK roster with zero scholarship players who were part of John Calipari’s final Kentucky team.
Pope’s first UK squad features nine transfer additions from a variety of schools at both the high-major and low-major levels. Point guard and power forward are expected to be UK’s top focus areas in the transfer portal later this year.
Additionally, there’s always the chance that a class of 2026 prospect with Kentucky interest could make the decision to reclassify to the 2025 recruiting group and join a college program, potentially UK, this offseason. That’s what happened last summer with Will Riley, a Canadian five-star small forward who reclassified from the 2025 to the 2024 recruiting group while committing to Illinois over a group of finalists that also included Kentucky.
One recruit that fits this description is shooting guard Alijah Arenas, the son of former NBA player Gilbert Arenas. The younger Arenas was originally a member of the 2026 recruiting class when he received a Kentucky scholarship offer in November.
Since then, Arenas has reclassified to the 2025 recruiting group. He ranks as a five-star prospect and as the No. 7 overall player in the 2025 class. Given Kentucky’s projected guard situation for next season, it would seem unlikely that Arenas ends up as a Wildcat. But with that said, 247Sports national basketball analyst Travis Branham reported earlier this week that Kentucky is alongside Arizona and Southern California at the top of Arenas’ recruitment.
Gilbert Arenas played two seasons at Arizona from 1999 to 2001, earning All-Pac-10 First Team honors as a sophomore.
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 11:00 AM.
