Cade Cunningham almost committed to UK during his official visit

With the news of Oklahoma State’s 2021 post-season ban, people are wondering where the No. 1 player in the class of 2020 will end up. Cade Cunningham is a name that Kentucky fans are familiar with, as he spurned the Wildcats last November and opted to sign with Oklahoma State, where his brother, Cannen, is an assistant coach.

However, during the month of October, all the buzz was surrounding the Kentucky Wildcats and John Calipari as the favorites to land the No. 1 player, and Corey Evans from Rivals recently back that claim up.

In an interview with David Sisk of Cats Illustrated, Evans said that Cunningham to Kentucky was likely about to happen when Cunningham took his official visit for Big Blue Madness back in October of 2019.

“Yes, he was as close as you could get to committing during the visit to Kentucky,” Evans told Sisk. “It took his mom and family pulling him off and kind of seeing the whole picture, and not just going off immediate reaction and committing.”

That would explain the reasoning behind Evan Daniels’ crystal ball pick of Cunningham to Kentucky, one of the rare misses from 247’s lead basketball recruiting expert.

That can also be backed up by the fact that Cunningham himself said he almost chose a different school in his commitment video.

“I loved all the schools I visited, and I appreciate each program for investing their time and energy into me. To be honest, I was this close to picking a different school, but blood is always thicker than water. Go Pokes.”

While Cunningham has not officially decided on what he will do for this upcoming season, whether it be stay at Oklahoma State, take up the G-League on their offer, or transfer to another school, I would not expect Kentucky to be involved, in my opinion.

With a very guard heavy roster and the addition of grad-transfer Davion Mintz, I believe it would be too crowded.

But, maybe John Calipari has one final ace up his sleeve for the 2020 recruiting class. CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish believes that Kentucky will be front and center if Cunningham does decide to leave Oklahoma State.

“His brother is on staff, that probably matters, some,” Parrish said, “but I promise you, every school that was in there before he signed with Oklahoma State, they’ll be back in there right now. Kentucky probably front and center.”