Kentucky Basketball Recruiting: Scout updates rankings for top 100 recruits in 2018 class

Evan Daniels and Scout have released an updated top 100 prospects list for college basketball’s class of 2018, and the Kentucky Wildcats’ top targets are all over it.

As expected, Marvin Bagley is still No. 1, a recruit that Kentucky doesn’t seem to stand a great chance with at the moment.

Bagley, in our opinion, has separated himself from his peers and is far and away the top prospect in all of high school hoops.

It seems as if Bagley will remain the No. 1 prospect in 2018 if he doesn’t get approved to move into the 2017 class.

At No. 2 they have R.J. Barrett, a native Canadian who John Calipari really likes.

Barrett, a native of Canada, is coming off a huge summer, where he averaged 28 points in eight EYBL games. An even better feat, Barrett averaged 21.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 4.6 assists a game, while leading Canada to a Gold Medal in the FIBA U19 World Championship.

At No. 3 is another UK target, Bol Bol. R.J. Barrett moving into the 2018 class caused Bol to fall one spot from his No. 2 position in the previous rankings. He’s also a recruit that has cooled on Kentucky lately, as he’s favored to pick either Arizona or USC over UK.

Checking in at No. 3 in the updated rankings is Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei standout Bol Bol. Standing over 7-feet tall, Bol impresses with his skill and ability to score the ball in variety of ways. But he can also impact the game with his mobility and on defense.

The Kentucky targets didn’t stop there; Zion Williamson (4), Cameron Reddish (5), Romeo Langford (6), Darius Garland (8), Immanuel Quickley (9) and Simi Shittu (10) all made the top-ten, and Calipari has shown interest in all of them. It’s interesting to see Williamson not even in the top three of this ranking. 247 has him rated No. 1 overall in this class, which is probably more accurate than No. 4.

Quickley, the most probable Kentucky commit thus far, was able to move up one spot in the rankings despite adding R.J. Barrett to this class. The five-star point guard has had a great summer, arguably the best of any guard in this class, so it’s great seeing him get a well-earned spot in the top 10. At the rate he’s going, Quickley should be a consensus top-10 recruit when the final 2018 rankings come out.

Quentin Grimes, another Kentucky target, moved up 11 spots to No. 12. Moses Brown (14) and Naz Reid (16) both fell several spots. Seeing Grimes rise so high shows why Calipari has been pursuing the five-star combo guard so hard, despite Kansas being the presumed favorite.

You can read the rest of Evan’s article here, which can also take you to the complete list of Scout’s top 100.

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