Now that Archie Goodwin is a Kentucky Wildcat, can Perry Ellis be next?
By Paul Jordan
Could the dominoes really start to fall for John Calipari today? As Jon North reported, the news of Archie Goodwin’s commitment to Kentucky leaked late last night. And today, Perry Ellis will make his decision known at 2:45 PM Kansas time (3:45 EST). And according to Adam Zagoria, Ellis was still undecided yesterday with all four remaining coaches “still working on landing Perry”.
It’s gonna to be hard to pull Ellis from the state of Kansas, but if anyone can do it, it is John Calipari. A couple of pundits have spoken out and said that Ellis will likely choose Kansas. Once again, never underestimate Cal. Stay tuned.
It’s interesting how John Calipari works. It seemed for a while that Goodwin was going to commit in the spring and then Cal shows interest in Gary Harris, the next ranked shooting guard, and paid him an in home visit last night. Then a few hours later, Goodwin made his commitment. Harris would be a good pickup as well and both players could co-exist in Cal’s system. Kentucky is a late player for Harris, and for now, it remains to be seen if there is major interest or if the move was to spur action by Goodwin or another recruit.
There has been a lot of speculation that the decision of Kyle Anderson yesterday to commit to UCLA could have an effect on Shabazz Muhammad, as some pundits have Muhammad a UCLA lean. That necessarily may no be the case, according to Ron Holmes, Shabazz’s father. Holmes sent the following text message when asked if Anderson to UCLA could sway his son:
“They are good friends and have talked about playing college ball together. but they both at the end of the day have to do what’s best for themselves.”
It was a headspinning day in the world of conference alignment and I am sure the news will be different 10 minutes after you read this, but here goes. The PAC 12 has shut the door on further expansion, choosing to remain a 12 team conference, leaving Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State to make do with the Big 12. All of the Big East schools are supposedly standing pat as well, except for UConn who still wants to join the ACC. And it appears that West Virginia is out as the 14th school in the SEC and Missouri may be in, although it makes no sense geographically. There is a rumor that the SEC offer comes with the stipulation that the Big 12 collapse, and the SEC has denied the offer to Mizzou. At this point, it’s anyone’s guess.
Joker Phillips talked about the fan criticism and said that the fan concerns mirror his and he insists that he and his staff will “get it corrected”. It’s a tough test as Kentucky faces Florida on Saturday, but it is important to note that Joker knows about coming back from adversity. He was part of one of Kentucky’s biggest football turnarounds:
“I’ve been part of an 0-10-1 season. Battled ourselves to get to a 9-3 season (two years later). … I’m not satisfied with what we’re doing here. It starts with me. We’ll get it corrected.”
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