Star recruits who missed the NCAA Tournament. And the top UK basketball recruiting links.
Most of the star recruits from the 2021 class will be playing in the 2022 NCAA Tournament. But several prospects who were ranked among the top-25 freshman coming into this season didn’t make the Big Dance.
In all, nine of the top 25 players in the class of 2021, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, are not expected to play any NCAA Tournament games. Three of those players — Jaden Hardy (No. 4), Scoot Henderson (No. 10) and Michael Foster (No. 22) — opted for the G League over college basketball. Shaedon Sharpe (No. 3) enrolled early at Kentucky but will not play this season. And Emoni Bates (No. 5) started the season at Memphis but has not played since January and is not expected to rejoin the Tigers for March Madness.
Four other players were on teams that simply didn’t make for the NCAA Tournament field: Milwaukee’s Patrick Baldwin Jr. (No. 8), Stanford’s Harrison Ingram (No. 19), Georgetown’s Aminu Mohammed (No. 24) and Florida State’s Matthew Cleveland (No. 25). Of those players, Baldwin — once considered the No. 1 recruit in the 2021 class — is the only one who ESPN projects as a first-round NBA Draft pick this year. He is No. 28 on ESPN’s list of top NBA prospects.
Top recruits in the NCAA Tournament: Here are the 2021 stars who made the Big Dance, with tip-off times and TV info so you can watch each one this week.
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This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
