Rival coaches think Karl Towns Jr “headed to Kentucky”

Apparently some other coaches recruiting Karl Towns Jr seem to think that 2015′s top player Karl Town Jr is going to be a Kentucky Wildcat.  I’m not sure how solid that information is as according to Adam Zagoria, a coach said that because Towns mom spent time talking to Orlando Antigua at a workout Thursday night. It’s still a long ways off for Towns to make his decision though, so lets not get too excited, but Zagoria admits that Kentucky is in pretty good shape:

The 6-foot-11 Towns is only a rising sophomore and still a long way from making a decision, but there’s no doubt Kentucky, which offered him a scholarship earlier this month, stands in a unique position with him.

 

Wildcats coach John Calipari and Antigua coached him all summer with the Dominican Republic National Team that played an exhibition against Team USA in Las Vegas.

While Towns may ultimately end up at Kentucky in 2015, he’s still going through the process right now.

He plans on visiting Florida in October and will attend a football game. He is also interested in visiting Michigan soon but has no date confirmed.

 

Don’t expect other schools to just lay down and let Calipari take Towns Jr.  Take it how you will, but West Virginia just added Towns relative and former guard Da’Sean Butler as a grad assistant.

 

This weekend was a big recruiting weekend for John Calipari and his staff as the top recruit in the 2013 class, Julius Randle, paid a visit to Lexington and took in the UK Alumni game.  The Courier Journal talked to Randle’s mother Carolyn Kyles about the visit in advance and it seems like Randle was pretty darn excited to get to Lexington:

The Courier-Journal: In general, are you all pretty excited about getting out there and taking the visit to Kentucky?

Carolyn Kyles: We are. We’re real excited. Julius was just skipping and dancing around (Thursday night) as he was packing, and I was just like, ‘You’re excited, aren’t you? You’re excited, right?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready to get to the airport.’ They have so much going on this weekend with that alumni game, and Drake, who is one of his favorite rappers, is going to be there. So he’s excited about seeing him. We wish Jay-Z would pop in, but I guess not. (Laughing)

The Courier-Journal: I guess there will be several of these guys there who have been drafted recently. Is Julius looking forward to meeting those guys, and do you think that will make any kind of impression on him?

Carolyn Kyles: I think he’s looking forward to meeting them because (NBA players) he has had a chance to meet and had a chance to talk to when he went to the Elite 24 (all-star game) in Venice Beach last year – Tyreke Evans was there – … it’s always good to talk to people at the next level and meet them and find out the change from high school to college to the pros and what he needs to do to get better. That’s one thing you can do is always get better. … Talking to them, he can get some ideas about things he can do and practice and can work on to help him get to the next level.

 

In other recruiting news, John Calipari will be paying a visit to Andrew Wiggins today in West Virginia.

 

It’s one thing to get all these top rated players on campus for visits, but the one thing that Calipari has done better than any other coaches is to get these future NBA players to buy into his system and to share playing time, virtually ego free. The big question is not if certain players will come to Kentucky, but if they can co-exist in Calipari’s system. One of the players that seems to like Kentucky but seemed to have concerns about the influx of talent is James Young. Most people think that Young likes Kentucky but would not go there if say, the Harrison twins or Andrew Wiggins. That is not necessarily the case, according to his Godfather, Sean Mahone said:

“You play with Wiggins, you play with the Harrison twins, you play with Julius Randle, I would envision an up-and-down game and an opportunity for people who pose a threat from the outside to be able to given that opportunity. Simultaneously, if you have an opportunity to get to the bucket and create some things, I think it just presents a very interesting scenario, I really do.”

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“You play with Wiggins, you play with the Harrison twins, you play with Julius Randle, I would envision an up-and-down game and an opportunity for people who pose a threat from the outside to be able to given that opportunity. Simultaneously, if you have an opportunity to get to the bucket and create some things, I think it just presents a very interesting scenario, I really do.”