Mo Bamba recruiting update: Rivals experts make their picks for 5-star big man

Mohamed Bamba could make his decision any day now, but it remains to be seen when he’ll actually do so.

The five-star forward has made no plans for an announcement date, though it should come soon since we’re in the middle of May. It could come after the May 24th deadline for players to withdraw from the NBA Draft, giving Bamba a clear picture of who he’d be playing with in college.

For now, the recruiting experts at Rivals had a roundtable about where they think Bamba will ultimately land. Eric Bossi, one of the top basketball at Rivals, is siding with the Kentucky Wildcats for Bamba, but don’t count out the Texas Longhorns.

There is a lot of buzz about Texas right now and the Longhorns are certainly in a good spot. It's easy to tell him to look at all the minutes that have been left open by Jarrett Allen's departure for the NBA and to tell him those are his minutes. Shaka Smart was also able to develop a good relationship with him while coaching USA Basketball's 18U team last summer. However, I'm still hearing just enough rumblings to stick with my prediction of Kentucky, and if the Wildcats do land him, it would be yet another testament to what John Calipari can do in recruiting. Duke or Michigan would be a pretty big surprise to me at this point. On another note, Bamba is likely pretty amused by all of the hand-wringing over his decision and while he's not announced anything just yet I'd be willing to bet he has a lot better idea of what he wants to do than he has let on publicly.

However, fellow Rivals contributors Corey Evans and Krysten Peak think Bamba will pick Texas. They seem to be basing their predictions more on educated guessing, whereas Bossi is hearing that UK is in a good spot for Bamba.

In a separate roundtable at Cats Illustrated, their three-man team of T.J. Walker, Justin Rowland and Derek Terry all think Bamba is the most likely player to end up at UK next season over Hamidou Diallo and Cam Johnson. Diallo is likely to remain in the NBA Draft, whereas Johnson is leaning towards Arizona now after UK landed Kevin Knox.

Where do you think Bamba will end up?