Which Kentucky basketball recruits are scheduled to visit the Wildcats?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mark Pope and the UK basketball program will host recruits for official visits this fall.
- More than 10 players are expected to take official visits to Kentucky in the coming weeks.
- Class of 2026 recruits set to visit UK include Cole Cloer, Christian Collins, Arafan Diane.
As the final weeks of summer approach, the start of the 2025-26 college basketball season continues to come into focus.
And while Mark Pope and company will be plenty occupied with trying to take Kentucky back to the Final Four for the first time since 2015, there’s also plenty of attention being devoted toward potential UK players of the future.
The fall official visit season is nearly upon us, and UK has a full list of visitors on the docket. As of Wednesday morning, 12 prospects are scheduled to visit Pope and the Wildcats in the coming months. More official visits are sure to be added as these dates approach.
Kentucky’s current official visitor list spans all five positions on the court. The Wildcats are set to entertain backcourt prospects Caleb Holt, Deron Rippey Jr. and Jordan Smith Jr., small forwards Maximo Adams, Cole Cloer, Bryson Howard, Anthony Thompson and big men Christian Collins, Arafan Diane, Josh Irving, Ethan Taylor and Cam Williams.
First up on the visit docket is Adams (Sept. 5-6), followed by Holt (Sept. 12-14) and Cloer (Sept. 17-18). Three more recruits — Thompson, Diane and Williams — will be visiting the Wildcats in late September. Early October will bring recruiting visits from the likes of Collins (Oct. 3-5), Rippey (Oct. 3-5) and Howard (Oct. 4-6).
Of the days set to feature a recruit on a Kentucky basketball official visit, one weekend sticks out above the rest. Big Blue Madness — the annual kickoff event for UK’s men’s and women’s basketball teams — is expected to occur during the Oct. 10-12 weekend with Irving, Smith and Taylor all expected to attend.
This year’s Big Blue Madness will provide insight into Pope’s recruiting strategy in ways that last year’s edition failed to. That’s because last year’s Big Blue Madness occurred at the same time as a USA Basketball Junior National Team minicamp in Colorado. That overlap significantly limited which prospects were available to come to Lexington and experience one of the showcase events of the UK basketball season.
Last year’s visitor list for Big Blue Madness included class of 2025 guard Acaden Lewis — who committed to and signed with UK, before backing out of that pledge and committing to Villanova — and Thompson, who will be making his third visit to Kentucky when he checks out the Wildcats again in September.
When discussing which recruits are scheduled to visit Kentucky in the near future, it’s also worth recapping which prospects took a summer recruiting visit to UK. While the building blocks were being established for Kentucky’s current team, three recruits stopped by Lexington this summer for an up-close look at the Wildcats.
UK’s summer visitors were power forward Tyran Stokes, point guard Taylen Kinney and international center Sayon Keita. Stokes and Kinney — a pair of Kentucky natives — both visited Lexington in June. Keita, who is from Mali but plays in Spain, took a one-day trip to Kentucky in late July.
Earlier this month, Rippey — who is perhaps Kentucky’s top point guard target in the 2026 recruiting class — wasn’t able to travel to Lexington for a scheduled official visit due to weather issues. But, Rippey has already scheduled a new visit date for Kentucky in early October.
Except for Keita, all the recruits mentioned here are class of 2026 prospects. Keita is a member of the 2027 recruiting group, but he’s been strongly linked to a potential reclassification into the 2026 group.
Christian Collins is one recruit who will be visiting Kentucky this fall
Of the 12 recruits who are expected to be on the UK campus over the coming weeks, few have had as improbable a journey to prep basketball stardom as Collins, a 6-foot-8 power forward who will be in Lexington in early October and will share his UK visit with Rippey.
Collins is one of the gems of the 2026 class. The versatile big from St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, California, is a five-star recruit who is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 2 overall player in the high school senior class, behind only Stokes.
Unlike Stokes, who has long been considered the best prospect in the 2026 group, Collins was a late riser up the recruiting rankings. He played junior varsity basketball and underwent knee surgery before finding his rhythm and excelling as a big man with guard skills.
“He’s unique in that he was not highly ranked as a young player. This has happened really quickly, and I think that obviously shows the work that he’s put in,” Matt Dunn, Collins’ high school coach at St. John Bosco, told the Herald-Leader. “He’s kept that chip on his shoulder about trying to grow and prove to everybody that he is a really good player.”
Earlier this summer, Collins told the Herald-Leader that he would like to play in a spread offense at the college level that suits his playing style as a big who can operate both on the perimeter and in the post. This could be a perfect match with Pope, who provided instruction to Collins earlier this summer at a USA Basketball junior national team training camp.
“I think his skill and his body athleticism has caught up to his work ethic,” Dunn added about Collins. “And all of a sudden you have a great player.”
Along with Rippey, Collins’ visit to Kentucky is also set to coincide with that of Howard, a four-star small forward. Both players bolstered their recruiting stock this summer while playing on the Nike grassroots circuit.
This story was originally published August 12, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
