What is the current state of Kentucky basketball recruiting?

To most everyone’s surprise, elite prospect Zion Williamson out of Spartanburg, S.C. turned down Clemson, South Carolina and Kentucky on Saturday, pledging to play his college basketball at Duke.

That gives Duke the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 rated recruits in the Class of 2018 in R.J. Barrett, Williamson and Cameron Reddish. It has also prompted questions about where UK’s recruiting is headed.

I talked abut those topics and more with Herald-Leader recruiting writer Ben Roberts. We discuss Zion, possible UK targets, John Calipari’s Monday comments which appeared to take a shot at Duke, the NCAA convention, Tyler Herro and the current play of this year’s team.

Here are some of the links to the stories we talked about:

▪ Duke has the top three basketball recruits in the country. Has that ever happened before?

▪ No Zion Williamson, no worries? UK enters mix for another top recruit for next season

▪ Kentucky basketball signee earns a notable bump in new recruiting rankings

▪ Zion Williamson has committed to Duke. Where does Kentucky go from here?

▪ John Calipari doesn’t think anything has changed with UK’s recruiting

▪ Recruiting news and links at Next Cats

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This story was originally published January 22, 2018 at 9:42 PM.