UK basketball’s potential point guard of the future is visiting the Wildcats
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky basketball recruit Deron Rippey Jr. is taking an official visit to UK.
- Rippey is one of the top point guard prospects in the 2026 recruiting class.
- The 247Sports Composite ranks Rippey as a five-star prospect.
NOTE: Due to weather in New York City, Deron Rippey Jr. will be unable to visit Kentucky this weekend. The official visit has been rescheduled for Oct. 3-5, according to a social media post from Rippey’s father.
An active week of recruiting for the Kentucky men’s basketball program will roll on into the weekend.
Earlier this week, Mark Pope and the Wildcats hosted international center Sayon Keita for a recruiting visit. Now, another top prospect is set to begin his Kentucky basketball visit.
Deron Rippey Jr. — a top point guard in the 2026 recruiting class from Brooklyn in New York City — will be visiting UK from Friday through Sunday. Rippey is a 6-foot-2 floor general who is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as a five-star recruit and as the No. 16 overall player in the 2026 recruiting group.
Rippey, who plays prep basketball at Blair Academy in New Jersey, currently has 12 schools still under consideration for his college choice. Kentucky is among those 12 programs, along with Alabama, Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Miami (Fla.), North Carolina, North Carolina State, Syracuse, Tennessee and Texas. Rippey is turning 18 years old Friday, the same day he begins his UK visit.
This weekend’s trip to Lexington is the start of what will be an active couple of months for Rippey on the recruiting trail. He has several visits set up to some of his top 12 schools.
Rippey is expected to spend parts of August visiting Miami and North Carolina. September will bring scheduled visits to Alabama, Texas and Syracuse. In October, Rippey is expected to travel to Indiana and Tennessee. He also has visits set up to Kansas and North Carolina State in early November.
He’s also previously been to Louisville, although that trip came last November. According to 247Sports, Rippey is expected to make a return trip to Louisville and is also working on setting up a visit to Duke.
Rippey also comes from college basketball pedigree. His father of the same name played at East Carolina and Eastern New Mexico.
Rippey — who landed a UK scholarship offer in June after Pope and other Kentucky coaches watched him play at the NBPA Top 100 Camp — is one of six guards in the 2026 recruiting class with a Kentucky basketball offer. Five of those backcourt prospects remain uncommitted as official visit season begins.
Pope and the Wildcats don’t have any commitments from the 2026 or the 2027 recruiting classes.
Former SEC basketball star shares insight on UK recruit Deron Rippey
Gary Ervin knows what it takes to play at the college level.
Ervin — who is one of Rippey’s coaches with New Heights on the Adidas travel basketball circuit, as well as the head boys basketball coach at Nazareth Regional High School in New York City — was a four-year college standout at both Mississippi State and Arkansas. From 2003-08, Ervin played in 134 games at guard for the two SEC programs, starting 76 contests and averaging 8.2 points, 4.0 assists and 1.1 steals per game.
Ervin was a freshman contributor on the 2003-04 Mississippi State team that was a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and he earned SEC All-Freshman Team honors that season. He played in March Madness to cap each of his four college seasons (twice each with the Bulldogs and Razorbacks). Ervin’s final college season was spent playing for ex-Cat and current Tennessee Tech head coach John Pelphrey in 2007-08.
Safe to say, Ervin is aware of how to make an instant impact in college hoops.
He also holds strong ties to the Rippey family, telling the Herald-Leader on Thursday that his brother and Rippey’s father are close friends.
“It’s kind of like we’re family,” Ervin said of his connection to Rippey.
Ervin — who first took note of Rippey’s elite potential and skill when Rippey was in eighth grade — highlighted several of the point guard traits that Rippey has already displayed in his promising basketball career.
“The biggest thing that I’m excited about is his pace,” Ervin said. “He’s one of the best point guards in the country, but once he gets that pace and he gets to college and he’s (using) ball screens and he’s dragging it and pausing his dribble to see what the defense is doing, I think that’s what’s going to separate him.”
Ervin speaks from personal experience. He was a well-regarded college basketball recruit himself as part of the 2003 class that also included Luol Deng (Duke), Chris Paul (Wake Forest) and Trevor Ariza (UCLA).
Ervin was a four-star prospect in that 2003 recruiting class, and he said the way Rippey has been able to excel on a variety of youth basketball stages, including on both the Adidas and Nike travel circuits, is an indicator of his potential.
“I just feel that at the next level he’s going to be able to impact a program right away, not only because of what he does on the court, but because of (what he brings) off the court,” Ervin said of Rippey. “He’s very big on the community. He’s a humble young man, never gets in trouble. He’s a gym rat. I think he’s going to have an amazing, amazing college career wherever he goes.”
This weekend offers the chance for Rippey to better familiarize himself with the UK program. But he’s already gotten plenty of face time with Pope and other Kentucky coaches as UK has made Rippey a clear priority on the recruiting trail this summer.
Kentucky coaches have watched Rippey play at the NBPA Top 100 Camp as well as on the Adidas circuit. Additionally, Rippey was one of eight uncommitted class of 2026 recruits with a Kentucky offer who received direct on-court instruction from Pope during a USA Basketball training camp in June.
This means Pope and his coaching staff already have a sound understanding of what differentiates Rippey from the other standout guards in the rising high school senior class.
“His leadership. That’s the first ability of a point guard is being a leader,” Ervin said. “... (Rippey) is a vocal leader, and he’s a doer at the same time.”
Something else that should have UK fans encouraged about the Wildcats’ pursuit of Rippey is the fact that Kentucky seems to be a legit player in this recruitment.
Earlier this summer, 247Sports national basketball analyst Travis Branham painted a promising picture of UK’s standing in Rippey’s recruitment while speaking to the Herald-Leader.
“I would anticipate that Kentucky is going to make a really strong push at Deron Rippey,” Branham said. “He is one that they’ve been monitoring and watching for the entire spring and summer, and he’s the next top guard on the board.”
This story was originally published August 1, 2025 at 6:40 AM.
