Tuesday Quickies: Basketball Recruiting Heating Up Edition

Kentucky’s revamped staff is hot on the recruiting trail.

By John Morgan Francis@MonJorgan Jun 15, 2021, 7:53am EDT

While Kentucky has been developing progress with 2022 recruits such as Jalen Duren, Chris Livingston and Brandon Millerand, they also just wrapped up the weekend with an official visit from their lone 2022 commit — Skyy Clark.

Now, today is the first official day which college basketball programs can now officially contact 2023 basketball recruits. So in addition to prepping this year’s team and planning for the 2022 roster, head coach John Calipari and his staff can assert even more efforts in the direction of a new pool of prospects.

A few names that you’ll hear and see Kentucky tied to starts with the top-overall recruit in his class (and possibly all of high school right now), DJ Wagner. Wagner’s father played for Calipari at Memphis and his grandfather was an assistant under Calipari during his time with Memphis, too.

Elijah Fisher, JJ Taylor and/or Dra Gibbs — the fourth, eighth and 10th overall prospects in the 2023 class — would be excellent additions alongside Wagner. The latest trends in college basketball has star players wanting to team up and share their college basketball experience together, which would make landing Wagner an ever larger priority for Kentucky.

Omaha Biliew (no. 5 overall) and Kwame Evans Jr. (no. 6 overall) headline the top forwards in the 2023 class, with Biliew expected to visit Lexington sometime in June. Kaleb Glenn, the no. 44 overall prospect in the class from Louisville Male, seems to already have been won-over by the Cardinals but Kentucky is rumored to still have interest.

Baye Fall (no. 11 overall) and Jalen Lewis (no. 24 overall) round out the centers in the top-100 that Kentucky should be interested in. Despite Fall having reported interest in the G-League, he told Kentucky Sports Radio last week that college is very much on the table. Meanwhile, Jalen Lewis is definitely interested in the college route but coming from California and being somewhat undersized at the position could caution serious interest from Kentucky.

With programs now officially allowed to reach out and make contact with these recruits, we should learn even more about where Kentucky stands with each player and what the 2023 recruiting class could start to look like.