As a new season approaches, what’s the latest with UK basketball recruiting?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UK basketball is still searching for its first commitment from the 2026 recruiting class.
- Tyran Stokes and Christian Collins are two of Kentucky’s top targets in the 2026 class.
- UK coach Mark Pope will host a dozen recruits for official visits this fall.
The return of Mark Stoops’ Kentucky football Wildcats to the gridiron comes with implications for Mark Pope’s Kentucky basketball Wildcats as well.
College football season overlaps with official visit season for top college basketball prospects, and Pope is taking aim at plenty of them.
UK is still seeking its first commitment in the 2026 recruiting class and beyond. And the Cats have plenty of irons in the fire when it comes to recruiting the current crop of talented high school seniors.
Pope has 20 scholarship offers out to uncommitted players in the 2026 class. But not all of these recruitments are created equally, and not all of these prospects will find themselves in Lexington on an official visit.
Some of Kentucky’s top 2026 targets have already been on campus. Others are set to make their official visits to UK in the coming weeks and months. And as the ever-changing recruiting picture continues to shift, some recruits are no longer considered serious Kentucky targets.
To cut through the chatter, here’s a revised look at what Kentucky’s 2026 recruiting big board looks like.
Which class of 2026 recruits are considered serious UK basketball targets?
Throughout the summer, the UK fanbase has been teased with positive reports connecting the Wildcats to power forward Tyran Stokes, the consensus top prospect in the 2026 recruiting class. A Louisville native, the 6-foot-7 Stokes is a powerful and prolific small forward and one of the few recruits in the 2026 class with legit star power.
There’s plenty of smoke around the Stokes-to-Kentucky discourse. He took a surprise official visit to the Wildcats in early June, with assistant coach Jason Hart heading up Stokes’ recruitment. Stokes, who plays prep basketball at Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles, has also previously been on campus at Kansas and Louisville.
Should Kentucky continue to build its positive momentum with and ultimately land Stokes, it would be a banner moment for Pope and the program. Stokes would become the top high school prospect ever successfully recruited by Pope. That honor is currently held by incoming UK freshman guard Jasper Johnson (No. 21 in the 247Sports Composite rankings).
Aside from Stokes, the Cats have also established a good recruiting relationship with point guard Deron Rippey Jr. and small forward Anthony Thompson.
Rippey, a 6-2 floor general, was supposed to visit UK over the summer, but that trip was postponed due to weather in New York City that prevented Rippey from traveling. Instead, Rippey will be in Lexington in early October.
Thompson, a 6-8 small forward, should be plenty familiar with Lexington by now. He’s already visited Kentucky twice and is set to make a third trip to check out the Wildcats in September. Thompson got his fall official visit schedule underway last weekend with a trip to North Carolina.
While both Rippey and Thompson played travel basketball on the Adidas circuit, Kentucky — which recently extended its apparel contract with Nike through the 2034-35 year — is viewed as a real player in both of their recruitments. Rippey is working with a top 12 list that includes Kentucky, while UK made the cut among Thompson’s final seven schools.
Another name to know for the Wildcats on the recruiting trail is power forward Christian Collins, a 6-8 prospect who is right behind Stokes as the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2026 class. Collins’ rise up the recruiting rankings has been remarkable for a player who started out playing junior varsity basketball and has already undergone a knee surgery.
Collins — whom Pope coached earlier this summer at a USA Basketball training camp — is set to visit Kentucky alongside Rippey from Oct. 3-5.
UK basketball is on the outside in recruitment of Taylen Kinney, others
While Stokes leads the list of recruits Kentucky is in a good spot with, the opposite can be said for standout point guard Taylen Kinney, a dynamic 6-1 player from Northern Kentucky.
Kinney rose to basketball prominence at Newport High School and twice played in the Sweet 16 state tournament at Rupp Arena. His profile as a player has grown since transferring to the Atlanta-based Overtime Elite program following his sophomore season. Kentucky made Kinney’s most recent list cut, placing the Wildcats among his final eight schools.
Kinney also took an official visit to Kentucky in late June, but the Cats are still viewed as being on the outside looking in with his recruitment. Indiana, Kansas and Louisville are considered the frontrunners. Kinney visited Louisville in June, Kansas last week and has Indiana on the docket for this weekend.
Kentucky would also have to make up ground with center Arafan Diane and shooting guard Jordan Smith Jr.
Diane, a 7-1 center, is set to visit Kentucky in late September. Smith — who has UK among his top six schools — is one of three visitors tabbed for Big Blue Madness, the annual basketball tip-off event and recruiting showcase that is expected to be held the weekend of Oct. 10.
Kentucky’s other visitors for Big Blue Madness are centers Ethan Taylor and Josh Irving, which illustrates how wide a net Pope is casting with the 2026 recruiting group.
Perhaps the biggest omission from Kentucky recruiting talk right now is Baba Oladotun, a 6-10 small forward who recently reclassified from the 2027 to the 2026 recruiting group. Oladotun was one of only four prospects in the 2027 class to hold a Kentucky offer when he made the decision to move up an age group. Oladotun was the first player in the 2027 class that Pope extended a scholarship offer to.
Once the top-ranked player in the 2027 class, Oladotun is now the No. 5 prospect in the 2026 recruiting group. Oladotun doesn’t have an official visit scheduled with Kentucky.
On the flipside, Kentucky remains an option for another player who will likely reclassify from the 2027 to the 2026 recruiting group. That’s international big man Sayon Keita, a 7-foot center from Mali who plays internationally in Spain.
Keita had a whirlwind recruiting week earlier this summer when he made trips to check out Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and UConn. UK has gotten some good buzz with Keita following his stateside recruiting trip, and Pope has established himself as a coach who can have significant success with international frontcourt players.
Top basketball recruits to visit Kentucky this fall
As a result of having more than 20 offers extended to class of 2026 recruits, there will, obviously, be players that never make it to the Kentucky campus or whose recruitment by the Wildcats falls off.
An example came earlier this week when it was reported that 6-6 small forward Qayden Samuels isn’t expected to visit UK after picking up a scholarship offer from the Cats in June.
Still, the Wildcats at present have a robust lineup of recruiting visitors for the fall.
Currently, 12 recruits are slated to come to Lexington between early September and mid-October.
The aforementioned Thompson (Sept. 24), Diane (Sept. 26), Rippey (Oct. 3) and Collins (Oct. 3) are all on the list, along with Big Blue Madness (Oct. 10) visitors Taylor, Irving and Smith.
Other prospects set to visit Kentucky this fall are small forwards Maximo Adams (Sept. 5), Caleb Holt (Sept. 12), Cole Cloer (Sept. 17) and Bryson Howard (Oct. 4) and power forward Cameron Williams (Sept. 26).
Several of these weekend visits will line up with UK football home games. Kentucky hosts Ole Miss on Sept. 6 (Adams) and Eastern Michigan on Sept. 13 (Holt).
