Recruiting analyst picks against UK for Matthew Hurt and Jaden McDaniels

As the Kentucky Wildcats prepare to battle this weekend for a spot in the Final Four, there are a few off-court battles that have pretty high stakes as well.

There are two remaining McDonald’s All-Americans that are considering committing to Kentucky, and the time is coming for both of them to make their decisions.

Unfortunately, the tea leaves are not looking great for John Calipari and company in either case. Rivals analyst Corey Evans predicts that both Matthew Hurt and Jaden McDaniels will land somewhere other than Lexington.

“Unfortunately for the Wildcats, it is not looking promising,” said Evans. “While McDaniels is nowhere near his college commitment, as he told Rivals.com on Wednesday, picking Kentucky as his eventual landing spot seems to be a bit of a reach. The same could be said for Hurt, who is expected to come off the board on April 19. Duke, Kansas and UNC seem to be in a much better spot with the top-10 prospect. Kentucky will have to figure out other avenues to fill out its frontline for next season, a reason why it will host Bucknell transfer Nate Sestina next week.”

This comes after many of the top 2019 recruits also picked schools not named Kentucky for Hurt and McDaniels.

Of course, this is not what Big Blue Nation wants to hear leading into such a big basketball weekend. But if you read Evans’ entire piece, you will see that this is as much of a “bold predictions” post as anything.

For example, he also predicts that James Wiseman will go No. 1 in the 2020 NBA Draft and that Villanova will win the 2020 national championship.

The commitment of Keion Brooks will certainly ease the pain of this situation if neither player commits to Kentucky, but either of them coming to Lexington would put this class over the top.