Kentucky Basketball Recruiting: Shareef O’Neal decommits from Arizona Wildcats

For many worried about the 2018 Kentucky Wildcats recruiting class, a former option is back in play.

Shareef O’Neal, the son of NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, had committed to playing for the Arizona Wildcats this upcoming 2018 basketball season. He is a five-star power forward by Rivals that was wanted by teams across the nation.

Before committing to play at Arizona, Kentucky was seen to be a strong contender for him. Now, with the Arizona situation in flux, O’Neal is reopening his recruitment:

Throughout the day on Friday, multiple bombshell stories were dropped on us involving big-name players from almost every top school, including Kentucky.

Just when most of us thought the dust was settled ESPN hit us again with apparent FBI wiretaps. These revealed that Arizona’s head coach Sean Miller had discussed a $100,000 payment to secure that their star player, DeAndre Ayton, commit to Arizona.

With the Duke Blue Devils landing both Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett Kentucky has been on the search for a big man for the 2018 season.

Recently John Calipari and his staff have set their eyes on five-star forward EJ Montgomery, they may take another shot at O’Neal when he becomes available.

With news coming out today that Miller will not be coaching tonight's game you can expect to see him take a permanent leave of absence.

A player like Shareef wants nothing to do with a program going through this big of a scandal. His father has been quoted speaking of how big of a fan he is of Kentucky head coach John Calipari.

With mutual interest between Kentucky and O’Neal, there is a good chance he could be changing his commitment sometime soon.