Kentucky basketball offers first scholarship to a class of 2028 recruit
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Yann Kamagate is first class of 2028 recruit to get a scholarship offer from UK.
- Kamagate is a 7-foot center from California.
- Mark Pope is looking to rebound with the 2027 class after a poor showing with 2026 group.
Kentucky basketball has extended its first scholarship offer to a class of 2028 recruit.
On Monday, Yann Kamagate reported a scholarship offer from Mark Pope’s UK program.
Kamagate is the first prospect from the 2028 recruiting group to report a scholarship offer from the Cats. College coaches aren’t allowed to directly contact prospects in the 2028 recruiting class until June 15.
Kamagate is a 7-foot center from California. 247Sports ranks Kamagate as a five-star prospect and as the No. 4 overall recruit in the 2028 class. That recruiting service has Kamagate ranked as the top center in the 2028 recruiting group.
This past weekend, Kamagate impressed while playing up an age level on the Adidas travel basketball circuit. Kamagate plays for the Compton Magic on the Adidas circuit. He is currently averaging 13.9 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks per game through two sessions of the Adidas circuit this spring.
Kamagate, who is originally from Burkina Faso, was scouted this past weekend by UK assistant coach Mikhail McLean during an evaluation period for college coaches.
Pope and the Cats are hoping to score better results with future recruiting classes than they did with this year’s group. UK stumbled badly with the 2026 recruiting class, landing only two high school commitments from guards Mason Williams and Zyon Hawthorne.
247Sports ranks Williams as a four-star recruit and as the No. 110 overall prospect in the 2026 class. Williams is a son of new UK assistant coach Mo Williams.
Hawthorne wasn’t ranked by the major recruiting services. He’s a younger brother of UK freshman forward Braydon Hawthorne, who redshirted the 2025-26 season with the Cats.
Kentucky suffered several significant recruiting losses with the 2026 class, missing out on several elite prospects including top-ranked recruit Tyran Stokes. Ten of the top 20 players from the class of 2026 in the 247Sports rankings took a recruiting visit to Lexington, but none committed to Kentucky.
Across the past three high school recruiting classes, Pope has successfully recruited seven prospects to Lexington.
Those players are Zyon Hawthorne and Williams from the 2026 class, Braydon Hawthorne, Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno from the 2025 class and Trent Noah and Travis Perry from the 2024 class.
Acaden Lewis signed to play at UK from the 2025 recruiting group, but he decommitted from the Cats and instead played his freshman season at Villanova. Lewis hit the transfer portal this offseason and will play his sophomore year at Miami.
Collin Chandler was a freshman at UK during Pope’s first season with the Cats. He was originally part of the 2022 recruiting group before delaying his college career to serve a two-year mission trip for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chandler had been committed out of high school to play for Pope at BYU, before following then Pope to Lexington.
Chandler transferred to BYU this offseason.
Johnson, who 247Sports ranked as the No. 24 overall prospect in the 2025 recruiting class, is the highest-ranked high school player to commit to play for Pope in college.
