Ivan Rabb will have Kentucky Wildcats Basketball in his Top 5
By Paul Jordan
A few days ago, current Arizona Wildcat Nick Johnson completed the ALS ice bucket challenge and challenged “future Arizona Wildcat Ivan Rabb” to do so. Could the ice bucket challenge have turned into a way to read tea leaves for college basketball recruiting? Maybe. Maybe not. If it is, Rabb seems to be cool about it because he has announced that it is the Wildcats of Kentucky, not Arizona that will definitely be in his top five. ‘
"As for colleges, Rabb is considering numerous schools, including Arizona, Cal, UCLA, USC, Georgetown, North Carolina, Duke, Louisville, Kentucky and Kansas. He told SNY.tv he may have home visits with Kentucky, Louisville and Cal. As for his list of official visits, Rabb said, “I’m still trying to figure out my five. I think I want to cut my list to five before I set up my five officials.” Asked if any schools would definitely make the final list, he 6-foot-10 Oakland (CA) Bishop O’Dowd forward said, “I can say Cal and Kentucky will definitely be on that list.” He told SNY.tv at the Peach Jam that he talks with Malik Newman and Diamond Stone about possibly all joining forces in college, and mentioned Kentucky and Kansas as two possible landing spots. “Yeah, those two definitely,” he said again Thursday."
There is still time for Arizona to make Rabb’s top five however. And the much hyped package deal of Rabb, Diamond Stone, and Malik Newman still seems to be a Kentucky possibility as all three players like UK.
Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Perhaps the biggest trick for Cal the Magician is how to turn this 2015 class (ranked 15th by some sites) into a top three site by May. Don’t worry. It will happen. And the wheels continue to churn on that trick as another 2015 recruit has joined the Big Blue Madness list. Brandon Ingram just announced his intent to attend.
"ZagsBlog’s Adam Zagoria and Scout’s Evan Daniels were among the first to report the news. Ingram is in New York City for Saturday’s Elite 24 game, which features several other top UK recruits. Ingram also said he plans to visit Kansas for that program’s midnight madness festivities Oct. 10. UK commitment Charles Matthews and top targets Carlton Bragg, Stephen Zimmerman and Derryck Thornton have already confirmed that they will be at Big Blue Madness. Other recruits who have mentioned the possibility of visiting that weekend include Jaylen Brown, Malik Newman, Ivan Rabb, Diamond Stone and Antonio Blakeney."
Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
Even with all the positive recruiting news about the progress Kentucky is making in the 2015 class, analysts remain thoroughly unimpressed about the 2015 class overall. In other words, even if Kentucky can land a top two or three class, that class is not expected to be nearly as strong as Cal’s other classes. Scout recently had a forum where they dissed discussed the 2015 class and it was not kind.
"Josh Gershon: It’s as frustrating of a class as I’ve seen. As of today, there’s not a clear-cut No. 1 prospect if you want to make a prediction on who is going to be the most successful years down the line (which of course we’re trying to do), and even if you wanted to bet strictly on upside, that decision would be difficult as well. The difference between prospects in the top 15 really isn’t great, whereas in the average class there’s usually a steep drop off, separating the class into tiers. To make matters worse, there’s an unbelievable amount of low end high-major kids, to the point where we would need to stretch the list beyond 125 to get them all in. At the end of the day, we basically took a group of 50-60 guys and tried to squeeze them into 15-25 spots at the end of the Top 100, meaning a lot of kids who may be ranked in a typical class didn’t make the cut. Moral of the story: I’m ready to move on to 2016. So should Kentucky fans worry about this team, especially since there may be five or six of these kids joining the team? Not really. With the logjam of talent at UK, expect a few players to return. Tyler Ulis and Devin Booker should be back, along with Trey Lyles. Also expect a few surprises in the other players to return. And as always, Kentucky will once again be among the best squads in the land. It’s too early to discuss, so let’s just enjoy this year."