Brandon Knight cuts Florida from his list — are the recruiting dominoes finally set to fall?

by Paul Jordan
Never has the news of one commitment trimming his list from four teams to three teams brought so much rampant speculation but it did so today when it was confirmed that the University of Florida is no longer pursuing Brandon Knight.

The official story is that Knight is still considering Kentucky, Kansas, and UConn but the news of Florida being cut sent shockwaves through both Gainesville and Lexington.

The news has to be devastating in Gainesville as most pundits believe that the Gators are a top tier PG away from returning to top 16 or better status. The Gators are still in the hunt for Ray McCallum but a lot of Gator fans had their heart set on Knight teaming with fellow Florida product Kenny Boynton. And if Knight does end up in Kentucky, that means that John Calipari has come into Florida and take two top 100 Florida prospects back to Lexington, pairing Knight with Stacey Poole. I know that Donovan has a built in grace period for winning two national titles, but losing two top notch products to Kentucky has to bring some heat on Donovan for not keeping in state players. Maybe if Donovan would quit sniffing around other jobs, he could keep in state recruits. Just a thought.

The news in Lexington brought controlled giddiness. Most pundits considered it a Kentucky-Florida race and while it feels good to have Florida out of the running. I have learned to never count Jim Calhoun and Bill Self out. I feel good about Knight, but not good enough to celebrate yet. Of course Kentucky had another reason to celebrate today as Enes Kanter announced his commitment.

However, with the NBA Draft rumors going insane that Calipari could have six or seven spots to fill on his roster next year. Kanter and Poole makes two and all of this NBA draft speculation got me to thinking: What are the odds that Calipari can still pull off a Brandon Knight/Josh Selby recruiting class? I know it seems unreasonable to expect but Josh Selby has remained pretty coy about his choice of school. He will announce on April 17, which is after both the NCAA season and after Brandon Knight is expected to make his decision.

Let’s say that Kentucky does win the title, and both Wall and Bledsoe announce their decision to leave UK and it is widely projected they will both be lottery picks. Seeing that success, can we automatically rule out a Selby, Lamb, or a Cory Joseph coming to UK to team with Brandon Knight for a repeat? No one at all expected Eric Bledsoe to be close to a first round pick earlier in the season. If you were a HS player looking to make the pros, how could you ignore the success that Bledsoe had under Calipari’s tutelage?

It’s a very exciting prospect and I had ruled out the thought of UK signing more than one stud guard, but who is to say that when recruits think of college and who can best prepare them for the NBA, Calipari is far and away the number one choice?

Of course, this is a lot of blue driven speculation. Kansas made a statement of sorts when news is leaking out that Xavier Hentry may be a one and done, opening up another roster spot at Kansas. Kansas has a lot of people thinking that this Josh Selby/Doron Lamb announcement on the 17th will be a joint announcement for Kansas.

As exciting and as drama filled as this NCAA Tournament has been, this recruiting game is starting to be just as dramatic and exciting. Game on.

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