UK basketball has struggled with recruiting. What about some of its top rivals?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UK basketball doesn’t have a commitment from a high school recruit in the 2026 class.
- Recruiting is also ongoing for UK’s rivals, like Indiana, Louisville and North Carolina.
- UK played all of those teams this season, and they’re on the schedule again in 2026-27.
Kentucky men’s basketball’s recruiting struggles are well documented.
The Wildcats have yet to land a commitment from a high school senior as March approaches. Dating back to at least 2010, this is the latest UK has gone in a recruiting cycle without securing a pledge from a high school prospect.
The lack of recruiting results with the 2026 class — along with an uneven on-court product in the 2025-26 season — has led to plenty of Kentucky fan angst about the program’s trajectory under second-year coach Mark Pope.
Something else that’s not helping? The high school recruiting success enjoyed by three of UK’s top nonconference rivals: Louisville, North Carolina and Indiana.
All of those schools were on UK’s schedule this season. They all return as opponents next season.
For varying reasons, U of L, UNC and IU each occupy prominent space in UK basketball discourse.
UK’s losses to Louisville and North Carolina this season can be tied to the freshman phenoms rostered by each school. The immediate outlook for U of L and UNC, along with Indiana, promises more freshman talent that UK must deal with.
As Kentucky attempts to find its recruiting identity under Pope, how are some of its top rivals navigating the new-look recruiting landscape?
Pat Kelsey already has a star freshman player at Louisville
Like Pope, second-year Louisville coach Pat Kelsey is feeling the heat.
Kelsey has lifted U of L back to respectability, but the Cardinals are just 4-11 against ranked foes under his guidance. Louisville — which is 20-8 overall this season and 9-6 in ACC play — also lost a de facto home game in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season at Rupp Arena.
As scrutiny mounts on Kelsey’s coaching ability, how has he fared with recruiting?
Like UK, Louisville is also without a class of 2026 commit from the high school ranks. The Cardinals made major runs this cycle at two Kentucky natives, guard Taylen Kinney and small forward Tyran Stokes, but neither panned out. Kinney is signed to play at Kansas and U of L is no longer an option for Stokes, who is from the Derby City.
Despite this, Kelsey has accrued some recruiting goodwill with the Cardinals’ fanbase.
Before Kelsey even coached a game for the Cardinals, he landed a four-star recruit from 2024 class in power forward Khani Rooths. Kelsey hit the accelerator with his 2025 recruiting class, which was headlined by star freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr.
Brown — a five-star prospect who was ranked by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 8 national recruit — has been as good as advertised. He’s averaging 18.9 points, 4.8 assists and 1.2 steals per game. In November, Brown had 29 points, five assists and just one turnover in Louisville’s win over UK. Earlier this month, Brown set the ACC single-game freshman scoring record with 45 points in a win over North Carolina State.
Rooths and Brown are the only American high school prospects Kelsey has signed across the 2024 and 2025 recruiting cycles.
“Louisville has done a good job under Kelsey of reestablishing itself as a contender for marquee high school talent in the wake of Kenny Payne’s disastrous tenure,” said Brooks Holton, who covers the Cardinals for the Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville. “It should get a boost from Brown, in all likelihood, becoming the program’s first one-and-done player and an NBA (draft) lottery pick this summer.”
Kelsey is also taking a long-term approach with some prospects. Senegalese freshman forward Mouhamed Camara, a product of the NBA Academy Africa, is redshirting this season.
Holton said U of L boasts sufficient revenue sharing and NIL resources to pursue elite high school recruits. But that may not be Kelsey’s preference. Two Louisville contributors this season, 22-year-old Sananda Fru of Germany and 21-year-old Vangelis Zougris of Greece, joined the program after four-year pro careers in Europe.
“Their first two classes under Kelsey have shown (Louisville would) rather get old and stay old,” Holton said.
Kelsey has been active in the domestic ex-pro market. Former NBA G-League guard London Johnson committed to Louisville in October and is redshirting the rest of this season with the Cardinals.
Johnson — who played 100 G-League games across three seasons and didn’t previously play college basketball — has two seasons of NCAA eligibility. Johnson, who will make his college debut next season at 22 years old, effectively serves as an incoming 2026 recruit.
“His signing shows this Louisville staff will explore any avenue when it comes to building a roster,” Holton said.
U of L has struck out, so far, on its true class of 2026 recruits. But the Cards are still involved with some prospects. Earlier this week, Louisville extended an offer to four-star wing Boyuan Zhang.
Louisville already has two pledges in place from the class of 2027. Guard Isaac Ellis (a three-star recruit) and forward Ferlandes Wright (a four-star prospect) are early commits.
“If anything, I think Ellis and Wright’s commitments signaled U of L was moving on from the 2026 cycle and will replace its six outgoing scholarship players through the portal and the international scene,” Holton said.
This past summer U of L shifted one of its coaches into a general manager-type role. Brian Kloman, formerly an assistant coach and defensive coordinator, was named Louisville’s “executive director of player personnel and strategic initiatives.”
UNC also benefits from a freshman standout this season
North Carolina has won several recent head-to-head recruiting battles over UK. Hubert Davis’ program secured commitments from five-star recruits Ian Jackson (2024) and Caleb Wilson (2025) despite strong pursuits by Kentucky.
That trend continued this cycle. Maximo Adams, a five-star small forward from California, committed to the Tar Heels from a final list of options that included Kentucky, Michigan State and Texas.
Davis is in his fifth season as North Carolina’s coach. He’s landed at least one five-star high school prospect in four straight recruiting cycles: Elliot Cadeau (2023), Jackson (2024), Drake Powell (2024), Wilson (2025), Dylan Mingo (2026) and Adams (2026).
According to 247Sports this is the longest streak of elite recruiting success for UNC since 2008-2011.
“They probably offer the least amount of kids of any team in the country. They’re not going to offer any more than probably 10, 12 at the most, in a class,” said David Sisk, a basketball and recruiting analyst for Rivals who covers North Carolina. “... Out of that deal, you’re going to get four or five who have legitimate interest that you’ve got a shot for. Then that narrows down there, because you still have to win the battle.”
Since 2000, North Carolina trails only Kentucky and Duke when it comes to landing five-star recruits. The majority of that recruiting success came under legendary coach Roy Williams. Of the five-star recruits Davis has landed, two have chosen to transfer. Cadeau is now starting at Michigan, and Jackson, a New York City native, is playing for St. John’s. Powell went one-and-done and was a first-round NBA draft pick this past summer.
That heightened the need for the 6-foot-10 Wilson to perform well this season, said Sisk, who previously also covered UK basketball and recruiting.
Wilson — who is currently out due to a fracture in his left hand — is averaging 19.8 points and 9.4 rebounds per game for the Tar Heels (22-6, 10-5). He’s expected to be a top-10 selection in this summer’s NBA draft. In a December win at Kentucky, Wilson had 15 points, 12 rebounds and six assists.
“It’s very important for Caleb to come in and do well, because Hubert needs that to where he can sell it to kids that ‘Hey, we’ve got a guy who went as a lottery pick. We’ve got a guy who’s going to be in an All-Star game,’” Sisk said.
Sisk said Davis’ current recruiting approach involves bringing in a handful of top-25 high school prospects each year.
“They’re willing to spend on NIL,” Sisk said. “... It’s not like they have just unlimited funds, but they’re willing to spend money to get the top high school player.”
International recruiting and the transfer portal is comprising more and more of UNC’s roster-building strategy, though.
247Sports’ Travis Branham ranked UNC junior center Henri Veesaar as the ACC’s best transfer portal pickup from the offseason. Veesaar is averaging 16.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game after transferring in from Arizona.
“Hubert’s really good with relationships,” Sisk said. “... He is very, very comfortable going to the portal.”
UNC has also gotten 10.0 points per game from Luka Bogavac, a guard from Montenegro who was known as a high scorer during his pro career in Europe. Bogavac is the first international recruit — without previous college experience — that Davis has landed.
Like Louisville, North Carolina also has someone in place to oversee its program. In February 2025, UNC hired Jim Tanner, a former basketball player agent, as the executive director and general manager of the men’s basketball team.
IU basketball has gone portal heavy under new coach DeVries
It’s only year one for head coach Darian DeVries at Indiana, but he’s also struggling to live up to early expectations.
The Hoosiers (17-11, 8-9) are right on the bubble as they chase their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2023.
As was the case with Pope at Kentucky in 2024, DeVries (formerly the head coach at Drake and West Virginia) used the transfer portal to build his first roster. Indiana — which didn’t retain a single player from its 2024-25 team — brought in 10 transfers this past offseason, notably edging out Kentucky for shooting guard Lamar Wilkerson.
It’s too early to make judgments about DeVries’ high school recruiting ability with the Hoosiers, but the early signs are encouraging. In its 2025 recruiting class, DeVries retained a commitment from Trent Sisley, a four-star power forward who signed with IU when Mike Woodson was the head coach.
Sisley had six points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes off the bench in Indiana’s loss at UK in December.
The Hoosiers have made a splash in 2026 recruiting. IU has a trio of four-star high school commitments in place: Combo guard Prince-Alexander Moody and small forwards Vaughn Karvala and Trevor Manhertz.
“Indiana’s high school recruiting approach thus far seems to be targeting players who will be multi-year pieces,” said Alex Bozich, a longtime IU basketball observer who co-founded the independent website Inside The Hall. “... To build a foundation for next season IU has three players committed, and all of them appear to be guys who will be in college for multiple seasons. Because each player is going to need some time to develop, IU is still going to need to be very heavy in the portal this spring to build out its starting lineup for next season.”
Bozich described DeVries’ 2026 class as being in “the sweet spot” of modern recruiting.
“Assuming IU can retain and develop all three, this group should provide a solid foundation moving forward,” Bozich said. “That will require some patience, obviously, but it seems like a more sustainable model than targeting five-stars every season, given the competition and price tags for those players.”
IU — which last landed a five-star high school recruit in 2024 — ranks as the 18th-best high school recruiting class in the country this cycle, per 247Sports.
Given DeVries’ apparent preference for targeting multi-year college players, it remains to be seen how much of a player Indiana will be for the best prep prospects going forward.
“Given the cost of the top high school talent and the need to focus on the portal in the near term, while trying to develop high school recruits over multiple seasons, it doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense for a program in IU’s current position to spend significant money on a freshman who may only stick around for one year and may be less impactful than a proven addition from the portal,” Bozich said.
Like Louisville and UNC, Indiana also has a general manager for its men’s basketball program, though it’s a new addition. Earlier this week, IU hired former Indiana Pacers player personnel executive Ryan Carr as its executive director of basketball.
