Star basketball recruit Taylen Kinney is still considering coming to Kentucky
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Class of 2026 college basketball recruit Taylen Kinney is still considering coming to UK.
- Kentucky is one of eight colleges still in contention for Kinney.
- Kinney is ranked as a five-star point guard prospect in the 2026 recruiting group.
An elite college basketball recruit from the commonwealth continues to whittle the list of schools in his recruitment.
And Kentucky continues to make the cut.
On Thursday, standout class of 2026 point guard Taylen Kinney announced the final eight schools in his college recruitment. Mark Pope’s UK program made the list for Kinney, along with Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Miami (Florida), Oregon and Texas.
Kinney is a 6-foot-1 guard who is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as a five-star recruit and as the No. 16 national prospect in the rising high school senior class. Kinney is also ranked by that service as the top point guard prospect in the 2026 class.
In July, Kinney announced a list of 12 schools that he was still considering for college. Auburn, Purdue, Tennessee and Xavier failed to make the cut from Kinney’s top 12 list to his top eight list.
Kinney is a former Kentucky high school star who burst onto the basketball scene while playing for Newport High School in Northern Kentucky. While playing for the Wildcats, Kinney earned all-state honors and led the school to appearances in the Sweet 16 state tournament in both 2023 and 2024. Newport won the small-school All “A” Classic state championship in 2024.
In total, Kinney played three seasons of Kentucky high school basketball at Newport. He played varsity for the Wildcats as an eighth grader, freshman and sophomore. Kinney scored 1,220 points during his Newport career.
Now, Kinney is about to begin his second and final high school season with the Overtime Elite program in Atlanta. That’s the same basketball development pathway that produced former UK guard Rob Dillingham and incoming UK freshman Jasper Johnson, who, like Kinney, began his prep career in Kentucky.
The 17-year-old Kinney was a standout performer during his first season at Overtime Elite, where he was teammates with Johnson on the RWE team. Kinney finished the 2024-25 OTE regular season with per-game averages of 20.1 points, 5.0 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 2.3 steals.
“He’s got a high ceiling,” Corey Frazier, who coached Kinney’s RWE team, told the Herald-Leader last fall. “He’s going to be a tremendous point guard. He competes at a high level.”
So far in his recruitment, Kinney has taken official visits to Kentucky, Louisville and Purdue. But a long list of official visits is still on the horizon for the talented guard.
Kinney is supposed to be visiting Kansas this coming weekend. He also has official visits set up to Indiana, Oregon, Texas and Arkansas, which is led by former UK coach John Calipari.
Kentucky first expressed recruiting interest in Kinney when Calipari led the Wildcats. Calipari hosted Kinney for Kentucky’s 2023 Big Blue Madness and Kinney was also at Rupp Arena in February when Calipari’s Arkansas squad beat Kentucky in an emotionally charged contest.
Something to monitor in Kinney’s recruitment is his relationship with Adidas outfitted schools. Kinney has an NIL endorsement deal with Adidas and played AAU basketball on the Adidas 3Stripes Select Basketball circuit. Overtime Elite also has an apparel deal with Adidas.
Kinney is one of 20 uncommitted class of 2026 recruits with a UK basketball scholarship offer. Pope and the Wildcats are still looking for their first commitment from the 2026 class.
Previously, Kinney told 247Sports that he plans to make his college commitment after he takes his official visits and probably before the OTE season begins.
247Sports national basketball analyst Travis Branham recently told the Herald-Leader that Kentucky is on the outside looking in for Kinney’s recruitment, despite the Wildcats continuing to make Kinney’s list cuts.
“They’re trying really hard on Tay Kinney, but I don’t necessarily like their chances with Tay Kinney,” Branham said. “I think Louisville is very much in the driver’s seat of that one, and that’s going to be a tough one to kind of flip at the end of the day.”
Like UK, Pat Kelsey’s Louisville program is still in search of its first class of 2026 commit.
Taylen Kinney is still considering coming to Kentucky
This is the second time that Kentucky has made a list cut for Kinney. His first list announcement came last Christmas, when he included Kentucky among 15 schools that he was considering. UK then survived his cut to 12 schools, and now his cut to eight schools.
Kinney has been a longtime target for Pope and the Kentucky staff. He earned a UK scholarship offer last August while on an unofficial visit to Kentucky. Pope and UK assistant coaches Cody Fueger and Jason Hart conducted an in-home visit with Kinney in April and Kinney took an official visit to Kentucky in late June.
Kentucky’s coaching staff was a mainstay this spring and summer on the Adidas grassroots circuit to watch Kinney play with his Wildcat Select team. Also this summer, Kentucky coaches got the chance to evaluate Kinney during the NBPA Top 100 Camp in South Carolina and during a USA Basketball Under-19 national team training camp. At that USA Basketball camp, Kinney received on-court instruction from Pope and participated alongside incoming UK freshmen Johnson and Malachi Moreno.
Additionally, Kinney has shared the floor in other settings with players connected to the Kentucky program. Earlier this summer, Kinney participated in the 2025 Adidas EuroCamp in Italy where he was teammates with fellow class of 2026 UK recruits Caleb Holt and Anthony Thompson. Holt is scheduled to visit Kentucky in September and Thompson has included Kentucky in his top seven list of schools.
Kinney was also a participant in last year’s Adidas EuroCamp with Holt, Thompson and Moreno.
Kinney has one of the biggest social media followings of any prominent high school basketball recruit. In part aided by his move to the social media savvy OTE operation, Kinney has more than 350,000 followers on Instagram and more than 930,000 followers on TikTok.
This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 12:31 PM.
