Kentucky Basketball Recruiting: UK coaches busy as fall period heats up

The fall recruiting period is upon us and Kentucky coaches are going to be busy over the next couple weeks meeting with recruits and their families and hosting official visits.

John Calipari and staff recently visited Findlay Prep in Nevada, and although they are not heavily involved with any Findlay Prep players, Calipari told USA Today some of the activity during the recruiting period are for building relationships with coaches and schools.

We may be somewhere where we’re not really doing a whole lot of recruiting, it’s about relationships with coaches and schools.”

Here’s a recap of other recruiting visits UK has been part of this week:

• On Sunday, the coaches were in Houston following their fundraising telethon for flood victims, and while in the area, coaches stopped in to check on 2018 guard Quentin Grimes. Kentucky is seen as a longshot in Grimes’ recruitment. He is projected to commit to Kansas.
• As for a few of the other stops that Calipari and the coaching staff have planned, according to Ben Roberts of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
• A visit with 2018 shooting guard Keldon Johnson in Virginia Monday, and he’ll take a official visit to UK this weekend.
• A visit with 2018 power forward Simi Shittu earlier Tuesday morning. Calipari was actually at a 6am workout for Shittu, which shows just how much UK is interested in the elite big man.
• As for 2018 #1 player R.J. Barrett, Hurricane Irma has thrown a wrench in those plans with Barrett playing in Central Florida. Barrett is taking an official visit to Duke this weekend.

• Hosting 2018 point guard Immanuel Quickley on campus this weekend. Quickley will also be deciding soon, as most believe he will commit in early October.
• A weekend visit in California with big man Bol Bol. Kentucky has lost a lot of momentum with Bol, but Calipari would love to get back in the driver’s seat in his recruitment.
• A meeting last Saturday with the overall #1 player in 2019, James Wiseman. Wiseman has had a lot of good things to say about Kentucky recently.
• Meetings last Saturday with 2019 guards Scottie Lewis and Bryan Antoine, who have already visited Kentucky and most view the two as a package deal at the collegiate level.

As for recruits that don’t have a planned visit, Romeo Langford and Darius Garland hold Kentucky offers, but no plans have been made for visiting the 2018 guards.

2018 recruiting is heating up and in the next few weeks into October, we will likely see several dominoes begin to fall. Locking up Quickley as soon as possible would be a nice get for the Kentucky coaches, and Barrett could decide early too. If Kentucky could lock those two up in the fall, they would set themselves up nicely for a really strong recruiting class going into the spring.

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