Immanuel Quickley says Kentucky Wildcats lead for Keldon Johnson

Immanuel Quickley continues to be a powerful recruiter for the Kentucky Wildcats.

Even before Quickley made his public commitment to UK, he was constantly in the ear of other recruits while selling them on UK. Now that Quickley is a Cat, his recruiting efforts have only increased, which could help UK come out of the fall signing period with a monster class.

In an interview with SEC Country’s Kyle Tucker, Quickley opened up about who he’s recruiting the hardest, including one Keldon Johnson. The five-star wing out of Virginia is rumored to be trending heavily toward UK, a notion that Quickley only reinforced.

“I’ve been talking to Keldon a lot. He says he likes Kentucky a lot, too, so hopefully I can get him to come with me,” Quickley told SEC Country. “I think Kentucky is definitely his leader.”

Elsewhere, Ben Roberts reports that “The Herald-Leader has been hearing good things about UK’s chances with Johnson for weeks.”

It’s becoming the worst-kept secret that UK is at the top of Johnson’s list. Unless he’s just putting out a massive smokescreen, it’s getting harder and harder to not see UK landing him at some point.

Landing Johnson would also help ease the sting of potentially missing on the top overall 2018 recruit in R.J. Barrett, who continues to look like a Duke lean. As good as Barrett is, Johnson is a great player in his own right and wouldn’t be a major dropoff from Barrett.

That’s not to say UK isn’t still in the running for Barrett, but Johnson is good enough that they should absolutely take him if he wants to come, even if that hurts with Barrett.

It’s untelling when Johnson will make his announcement, but the sooner the better as UK looks to have most, if not all of its 2018 class signed this fall. Having Quickley and Johnson to build a class around would be a great way to go into November and hopefully add 2-3 more players.

Be sure to read Tuckey’s full interview, which also has some quotes from Quickley on Zion Williamson.

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