With Big Blue Madness now officially 30 hours away or so, I found this a good time to to take at the UK prospect list and see if anything may have changed in their status and see if we can expect any commitments to come from this group in the next month or so.
2010 PROSPECTS
C.J. LESLIE, PF, #14 overall rivals.com: As mentioned previously on this blog and others, the rumors on getting a commit from Leslie soon are deafening, but as of now, it all appears to be unsubstantiated rumors. In a live blog on Kentucky Sports Radio, Evan Daniels from scout.com said that Leslie appears to be a UK lean, but he may take a while before making a final decision. Since North Carolina is not in the picture any more, this seems like an eventual UK commit, just maybe not soon.
KYRIE IRVING, PG, #9 overall rivals.com: His commitment to Duke was supposed to have happened on September 27, but Irving has not yet pulled the trigger yet. Officially, Irving has a final five of Duke, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Seton Hall but in most circles, this is a two team race between UK and Duke with Duke still considered a heavy leader. I would not expect a decision either way until November as Irving seems committed to taking all five official visits and his last one is October 30.
TOBIAS HARRIS, PF, #5 overall rivals.com: Syracuse is widely considered the leader for Harris, but UK admittedly got into the recruitment of Harris relatively late. That said, UK has made tremendous ground and his Dad has had great things to say about UK on a few occasions. After BBM Friday, Harris will visit UL on 10/30 and has said that he will make a decision around the third weekend of November. Tennessee has come on strong for Harris lately but here’s hoping a weekend with Calipari will wash the Bruce Pearl memories away.
2011 PROSPECTS
MICHAEL GILCHRIST, SF, #1 overall rivals.com: Gilchrist is arguably the number one prospect in the 2010 and 2011 recruiting class and he is widely figured to be a heavy UK lean. He is also the teammate of Kyrie Irving and it has been no secret that both Irving and Gilchrist have talked about playing together at the next level, specifically at UK for Calipari. As of now, Villanova is widely rumored to be UK’s biggest competition right now, but UConn, FSU, and Indiana, among others have offered.
QUINCY MILLER, PF, #3 overall rivals.com: Is the type of athletic forward that Calipari loves and UK is obviously pretty high on his list as well as he sent out a twitter text that read simply “Kentucky? ;)” shortly after Calipari paid a visit to his HS coach. Could also be the third straight “big catch” from North Carolina after John Wall and C.J. Leslie (hopefully).
ACHRAF YACOUBOU, SG, #76 overall rivals.com: At first glance would seem to be kind of a low rated prospect to be chasing this early, but this is a name that is going to skyrocket in the player ratings over the next two years. He is well versed on Calipari as he played HS basketball with both Tyreke Evans and Tobias Harris. And that is part of the reason he is rated this low as he has spent most of his HS career backing up Evans and Harris. Now that he is at another school…. skyrocket.
So not a bad weekend for UK hoops as we boast of hosting four Top 10 players over the next two recruiting classes. Hopefully Calipari can work his magic and we can end up with a couple of more commits in November.
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