Dontaie Allen commits to Kentucky Wildcats Basketball

The Kentucky Wildcats have landed Dontaie Allen, as the four-star wing committed to UK on Thursday.

Allen also spoke with Evan Daniels about the decision to pick Kentucky just one day after taking an unofficial visit and scoring a scholarship offer while in Lexington.

“Really just coach Cal and the competition that I’m going to be facing day in and day out,” Allen said when asked about his pledge. “Their strength and conditioning program I think will help me a lot.”

On Wednesday, Allen became one of the rare Kentucky natives to earn an offer from John Calipari, who annually has UK in the mix for most of the nation’s elite high school talent. That speaks to how good of a prospect Allen is that Calipari would offer him in the middle of the summer going into his senior season.

It also helps that Kentucky has been the dream school for the Bluegrass native.

“I grew up a Kentucky fan, but growing up I didn’t think I had a chance to play there or be good enough to play there, but the fact that I’m kind of on that level, it means a lot,” Allen said.

”All these things early in high school growing up, I always wanted to happen and I always worked for it,” he added. “I didn’t know it would happen like this, but it’s kind of perfect timing, but I had no idea.”

The 6-6 wing from Pendleton County is coming off a breakout junior season where he averaged 31.8 points per game on 59.1-percent shooting and shot 39.6 percent from deep. He also grabbed 11.4 rebounds per game.

Allen has been hearing from more and more schools as he continues to build his profile on the recruiting trail. In the last two months, he has picked up offers from Louisville, Clemson, Florida, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Purdue, Dayton, Nevada, Western Kentucky, and Xavier.

While Kentucky had yet to offer up until this week, they had been very interested, especially as Allen became a breakout star on the summer AAU circuit. Allen is currently ranked 83rd overall in the 2019 class by 247 Sports as a four-star prospect. Rivals has him ranked 47th overall and the best prospect from the state of Kentucky.

For UK fans who have been desperately wanting a homegrown player, Allen looks like a great fit as a multi-year player who could contribute as early as his freshman season.

This also comes on the heels of DJ Jeffries decommitting from Kentucky, though that feels like a distant memory now with Allen on board and Kahlil Whitney visiting this weekend.

Here are some highlights from Allen’s AAU season:

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