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With Kentucky Wildcats basketball practice now in full swing for this season, the coaches are still trying to add the final pieces to what is shaping up to be another talented class under John Calipari.
It seems though that there may be a little more ground to make up than expected with their lone frontcourt target left in the 2022 class.
Tuesday morning, Rob Cassidy of Rivals submitted a futurecast for Adem Bona to end up at UCLA. Cassidy is the first to pick the Bruins in the Rivals futurecast. He also answered a question on Bona’s recruitment earlier today as well in his Twitter Tuesday article.
.@Cassidy_Rob answers questions regarding the recruitments of Adem Bona, Jordan Walsh, Mark Mitchell and more: https://t.co/joITuzNuJb
— Rivals (@Rivals) October 12, 2021
Cassidy was asked about how long he thought Bona would wait to decide on his college for next season. Here is what he said:
“The sticking point here is Adem Bona scheduled official visit to UCLA later this month. Sure, there are other schools “technically” in the mix, but this is a Kentucky-UCLA battle at its core. I’d assume an announcement will come in the weeks following Bona’s Oct. 22 trip to Westwood, as he’s already been on campus at Kentucky and knows what the Wildcats have to offer. What happens that weekend will ultimately determine where the five-star big lands, and I’d expect to hear something on that around the first of the month.”
Once seen as a near-lock to UK, the relationship got a little rocky due to the coaching staff going all-in on trying to land Dereck Lively II before his commitment to Duke.
Luckily after Bona’s visit to Lexington a few weeks back, it seems that Coach Cal and his staff have made up the ground, the question just remains was it enough. As Cassidy mentions, UCLA getting the final visit might not be ideal for the Cats.
The 6-foot-9 center plays for Prolific Prep out of Napa (CA), and it seems that the California connection might win out in the end, but if we have learned anything from Coach Cal over his tenure, he’s not going to go down without a fight.
Bona is currently ranked as a 5-star center in the Class of 2022 and is considered the No. 19 player in the country according to the 247 Sports composite rankings.
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