Bad news on Scottie Barnes but good news on Jaden McDaniels

The Kentucky Wildcats are trying to finish off their 2019 recruiting class while also starting to build the 2020 class.

Starting in the 2019 class, 6-11 power forward Jaden McDaniels has kept his recruitment quiet for the most part. Most experts have assumed that he will be deciding between Kentucky and Washington, with the general belief that he will join the hometown Huskies.

However, Twitter was full of interesting information yesterday.

Jack Pilgrim wrote an article on KSR where he gave up update on the Kentucky targets for the class. For McDaniels, it was the most positive update for Kentucky we’ve seen in 2019.

Trevor Trout, who is a football player at USC, but he is connected with west coast basketball and Kendyl Provost Jr., who is also connected on the west coast, had some interesting things to say.

Trout said this on Twitter: “Kentucky got that kid. Not saying his name. If you know, you know lol.”

Shortly after, Provost followed up with some interesting tweets of his own.

While it’s hard to put much stock in this, Pilgrim did offer his own positive update on McDaniels:

Outside of just a few tweets, there seems to be growing confidence on Kentucky’s side of things that they have done enough to pull this off. He has always liked UK, even calling the program his “dream school” at one point, but his tendency to shy away from the spotlight have made most recruiting analysts feel that he would ultimately stay out west.

While I still think Washington is a strong contender and certainly shouldn’t be counted out, this is the first time in several weeks that I have felt Kentucky might actually win out in the end.

Even though the Washington Huskies are going to be right there until the end in his recruitment, it is great to see Kentucky get some apparent momentum and hopefully they will be able to get McDaniels to Lexington.

Now for a not so good update for 2020.

One of those names was Scottie Barnes, who is the No. 4 player in the class.

Barnes has said recently that his recruitment is still wide open and that he hasn’t given recruitment much thought.

However, Pilgrim noted that when is does come time for him to make a decision, it likely won’t be Kentucky.

“He’s not gonna be at UK,” one source told KSR. “I don’t think he’s even that serious about them”

The Oregon Ducks and Miami Hurricanes have gotten the most buzz with Barnes recently. Oregon was Barnes’ dream school growing up.

While there is still a ton of time before his final decision is made, it doesn’t look like Kentucky will land Barnes. Hopefully, they are able to land another talented wing in 2020 like Jalen Johnson or Cade Cunningham.