Wildcats eye 5-Star Chris Cenac Jr.: What will it take to bring him to Kentucky?

One of the top recruits in the 2025 class is 5-star Center Chris Cenac Jr., and he is one of the main targets that Kentucky is trying to secure. Starting on Sept. 27, he will be visiting Kentucky this weekend. Will Mark Pope be able to pull out all the stops, secure a big commitment, and keep progressing toward one of the top recruiting classes in the nation?

Cenac is a 6'10, 230lb Center who plays for Link Academy in Branson, Missouri. All recruiting agencies list him as one of the best players in the class and the top center. It has been known that he is one of Ketucky's Head Coach Mark Pope's top targets.

Cenac does not seem to be in a rush to choose a school nor narrow his list down beyond the 12 he currently has listed. Which are Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Houston, Kentucky, Louisville, LSU, Michigan State, Tennessee, Texas, and UConn. He plans to visit as many on this list as he can before he narrows it down even more. He has already visited Houston, Tennessee, and Auburn and according to ZagsBlog, he thought they were basically very similar, "I like every visit equally."

After his visit to Kentucky, he has a few visits lined up. Arkansas and LSU will be next up, with the Tigers being the final scheduled visit.

This doesn't inspire much hope that he will pick the Wildcats, except for a couple of things that I picked up on as I looked into his recruitment. The first is the fact that he wasn't really wowed by any school yet. Stating that he liked each visit equally doesn't inspire a lot of excitement that he will pick your school. He could simply be a recruit who is very chill, and nothing phases him, OR he actually wasn't overly impressed.

Kentucky had a similar recruiting scenario. He didn't seem to have Kentucky as much of a favorite, also one of many, but after his visit, he created quite a buzz with how much he liked it. He still hasn't committed, but now Kentucky is the favorite, and it seems to land him. Could the same be true after Cenac's visit?

The other thing that stuck out as I looked at his recruitment is that he mentioned in that same Zagsblog article that he wants to be one and done. He wants to go to a place that will help prepare him to jump into the NBA the following season. This bodes well for Kentucky, which has historically done this better than any program. Granted, Pope may have a different idea about it than previous coach John Calipari, but Kentucky can boast this fact better than any other program on his list.

Finally, Kentucky has a deep NIL fund in Club Blue, and if Pope needs to open the vault doors, he can. There are other programs with good NIL funds in that list, but none that can match Kentucky basketball dollar for dollar. This will be a recruitment to watch, and it will be interesting to see if he, like Wilson, gets overly excited about Kentucky.

Let me leave you with this: