While the Oklahoma State Cowboys remain the favorites to land five-star guard Cade Cunningham, the Kentucky Wildcats continue to pick up steam.
Corey Evans of Rivals reported that Cunningham would be in attendance for Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness Friday night, and now, the Lexington Herald-Leader is reporting another positive Cunningham update for Kentucky.
The Herald-Leader reports that Kentucky should now be seen as Oklahoma State’s main competition to land Cunningham.
For a while, it seemed the North Carolina Tar Heels were the Cowboys top threat, but according to this report, it’s John Calipari and the Wildcats the Pokes need to worry about.
Perhaps the visit for Big Blue Madness is the biggest indicator of such. After all, Cunningham was planning to take part in the Team USA Basketball camp this weekend. Cunningham is a Team USA veteran, and he just won a gold medal in the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup. He played and started in all seven games, averaged 23.6 minutes, 11.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.4 steals a game. Shot 40.7 percent from the field and 75.0 percent from the foul line.
These camps are a pretty big deal when it comes to a players’ standing with Team USA and being invited to future events, so seeing Cunningham pass on this weekend’s event to visit Lexington shows he’s very serious about UK potentially being his college destination.
Cunningham is a 6-6 guard from Texas who is ranked as the second-best prospect for 2020, trailing only USC Trojans commit Evan Mobley, according to 247 Sports.
If Kentucky were to upset the Cowboys and land Cunningham, they’d have two of the top four ranked prospects for 2020 with Terrence Clarke, who’s ranked fourth overall.
One other interesting development to watch for is what this means with Kentucky’s pursuit of Devin Askew. The Class of 2021 point guard and top-10 recruit is viewed as a strong Kentucky lead and may ultimately reclassify into 2020. If that happens, will it be an either/or situation for Kentucky’s recruitment of Askew and Cunningham, or will they be open to teaming up in Lexington?
Askew and Cunningham are both planning to make this college decisions in the coming weeks, so we won’t have to wait long to see what Kentucky’s point guard situation will look like for the 2020-21 season.
You can find the full story on Cunningham from the Herald-Leader’s Ben Roberts here.