Dontaie Allen’s father discusses commitment to the Wildcats

Earlier today John Calipari and his staff landed a commitment from in-state recruit Dontaie Allen.

Allen, who was on his unofficial visit, has said in the past that he grew up a Kentucky fan.

While I don’t believe having a Kentucky kid on the roster is a must, when one as good and special as Dontaie comes around, Kentucky was right to jump on the opportunity and get him on board.

And that’s exactly what Cal did.

After the news that DJ Jeffries reopened his recruitment and would not end up at Kentucky, it didn’t take long for Cal to fill that spot that was left open.

Allen is no doubt going to be a fan-favorite because everyone loves a kid from Kentucky that goes on to be a Wildcat. Every kid grows up in their driveway hitting the game-winning shot to win the title for the Cats, and when one gets to play for Kentucky, the fans always rally around him and pull for him to succeed.

After the visit was over, Dontaie’s dad, Tony Thomas, took the time to speak with Kentucky Sports Radio and talk about his son’s commitment.

When asked about the timing of the commitment his dad responded.

“I believe Kentucky has always been in his heart. It’s been that way for a while. With the amount of offers he had coming in, he wanted to keep his options open while waiting to see what Kentucky was going to do.

“When they come in so fast like they did, it’s really hard to digest things that were coming in, so when he went to UK, it’s always been in his heart, and it was nice to finally be able to sit down and talk with Coach Cal. We watched the practices on our unofficial visits and it was just a great fit”.

Allen essentially confirmed that in a separate interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader.

“I’ve been a fan my whole life,” Allen told the Herald-Leader over the weekend. “Growing up a Kentucky kid, you’ve gotta be a UK fan.”

Mr. Thomas was then asked to walk them through how getting the offer and Dontaie committing went down.

“Once we sat down and watched the practice — to see how they go through it and the competition that’s there at UK — it just pulled him in and he gravitated toward that,” Thomas said. “And then after practice, we sat down and talked to Coach Cal, got his expectations of the program. He gave us his vision of where he was at and what he likes to do, and Dontaie wanted to be a part of that.”

Allen committed on the spot Wednesday evening, then announced the news Thursday morning.

After reading what his dad had to say about Kentucky, the staff and the visit, I feel that this is the perfect fit for Dontaie and he will be able to succeed in this platform. He seems to have the right mindset about it and I look forward to seeing him at Kentucky.

Now that Dontaie is committed to Kentucky, his senior year of high school is going to be a fun one for him. He is going to have Kentucky fans at every game in UK gear and cheering for him. He will even have some opponents’ fans rooting for him because he is a Wildcat. He will start to see just how crazy this fanbase is when it comes to basketball.

Check out some of Allen’s junior season highlights:

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