Kentucky Basketball Recruiting: Top 5 2010 class or out of the rankings?
By Staff
The buzz that Doron Lamb will be making a decision soon is starting to get deafening. “Bluegrass State Basketball” is saying they have confirmation that a top 25 target is planning on announcing his commitment this week. While they did not name the player, there are only a handful of them available and one would have to assume that this will be Doron Lamb as his family has stated they will be sitting down and looking at their options over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Personally, I think that UK has a very good shot on Lamb and the fact that it has taken so long kind of makes me think that he wanted to commit early to UK, took a step back and looked at all his options, and is ready to declare now. Pure speculation here, but I get a UK vibe from Doron. For today, that is.
But what if the player that decides this week is Lamb and he does not choose UK? Jerry Meyers of Rivals had a mailbag recently that asked the same question about Kentucky’s recruiting. He said that UK should definitely not be in panic mode yet, but there is cause for concern. And he did not seem to think that Doron Lamb has UK at the top of his list and he sounds this ominious warning:
If the dominoes fall the right way for Kentucky, Calipari will bring in a top-five class. If the dominoes don’t fall the right way, Kentucky won’t even make it into the national recruiting rankings.
So if Lamb does not become a Wildcat, what is the forecast for UK? I think it is unreasonable to expect Calipari to get all of the top targets and UK will land some big names between now and June. But who and how many?
Well first we need to look at the PG situation. I think the odds are pretty good that UK lands either Brandon Knight or Josh Selby. I think the Gators will be more attractive to Knight thanks to their hot 6-0 start, but I don’t expect him to decide soon. What I do find particularly disheartening are these comments from Knight about UK and Florida:
Florida: “Something I like is that it’s right near home and it’s a great place to study and get your school work done also. Something I don’t like about it … that’s tough for Florida.”
Kentucky: “Something I don’t like is that they’re just trying to rebuild their program. I’m not quite too sure where they could end up going with it. Something I do like is they have a good new coach, a lot of good new recruits and it looks like they’re headed in the right direction.
Interesting that he considers UK in more of a rebuilding phase that two time NIT Florida but that can be meshed out on the court this year. Another thing that concerned me was the fact he mentioned the cold weather as negatives for UConn and Syracuse. From this article, I would place Knight as a Gator lean right now.
Even without Knight, I think that Josh Selby will be a Wildcat eventually. I also think that we will get either C.J Leslie or Terrence Jones. My gut feeling is that it would be Leslie and that Jones will stay out west, but honestly either of these two (or both) would shock me.
I also think that a very real possibility for next year would be the addition of Eloy Vargas to the team next year. As we recall, Vargas was the #14th rated PF and #41 rated overall player by ESPN in 2008. Vargas appeared in only 9 games for UF last year due to injury and is a great big hunk of potential currently attending Miami Dade (home of current Cat Darnell Dodson and former Calipari recruit at Memphis Will Coleman). I would say that the odds of Vargas being a Wildcat are very good.
So where does this leave the UK recruiting class? Here is a realistic look at what I expect UK to have with their possibly 6 open spots. (the 3 seniors, Paterson, Wall Cousins). Keep in mind that Stacey Poole is a very solid player whose stock is on the rise. He could very easily be a top 15-20 player by the time the final rankings are calculated in May.
Stacey Poole, #27 rivals
Doron Lamb, #21 rivals
Josh Selby, #4 rivals
C.J Leslie, #14 rivals
Eloy Vargas, #26 rivals in 2008
???????
I think that this is a very realistic class and is easily a top 10 class even without Doron Lamb and Brandon Knight. And keep in mind that Calipari may only use 11 0r 12 roster spots in future season so we could be looking at a class of Poole, Selby, Leslie, and Vargas. It’s still a class with 4 players in the top 27 … and this is not a best case scenario list.
Also as Jerry Meyers mentioned, UK still has time to get in the ear of players like Luke Cothron who is at the moment, a NC State “soft commit” but UK is in the mix with him, to a certain degree.
I too am a bit concerned about the state of this class, but in some ways, its a long, wild race to follow in the next 6 months or so.
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