Calipari’s worst ranking at Kentucky reflects a different reality in recruiting

The final composite recruiting rankings for the incoming class of college basketball prospects has been posted, and Kentucky finds itself in an unaccustomed position.

The Wildcats have the fifth-best recruiting class in the country, according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index. Just about any other college basketball program would be thrilled with such a recruiting finish, but it’s obviously not UK’s typical spot in the rankings.

In fact, it’s the worst RSCI finish in John Calipari’s 13 recruiting cycles as the Kentucky head coach. Calipari’s classes finished No. 1 nationally in each of his first five cycles in Lexington, and — until this year — Kentucky’s class was ranked either first or second in the country all but once. That was a third-place finish in 2015 (when Jamal Murray was undervalued as the No. 71 prospect in the country, due to a late reclassification and his status as a non-American high school player).

The RSCI takes the final rankings from several major recruiting services — this year’s list included Rivals.com, ESPN, 247Sports and longtime analyst Van Coleman — and forms a composite ranking for every top prospect, then uses a simple formula to rank the nation’s top classes, with the No. 1 overall recruit worth 100 points, the No. 2 recruit worth 99 points, and so on.

Jeff Crume, who has been ranking classes in this way for the past 34 recruiting cycles, noted to the Herald-Leader this week that the biggest takeaways from this year’s list were Calipari’s lowest finish ever as Kentucky’s coach and the growing presence of the professional route.

There’s a clear reason for the Wildcats’ relatively lackluster ranking.

“(It’s) obviously misleading since UK loaded up on the transfer portal, picking up more proven commodities than we are used to,” Crume said.

Indeed, the emergence of the NCAA transfer portal — and the promise of immediate eligibility for all who joined this offseason — completely changed the recruiting game, especially in the latter stages of the cycle.

College coaches knew there would be an abundance of talented (and college-proven) possibilities in the transfer portal, and coaches of Calipari’s stature knew they would have an excellent chance to land some of the very best players from that pool, once team needs for the 2021-22 season became apparent.

And that’s what happened for Kentucky, which signed three seemingly instant-impact transfers this offseason to go along with mid-season transfer Oscar Tshiebwe, who joined the program in January.

It all added up to Calipari’s smallest recruiting class yet at Kentucky — just three signees — leading to a lower-than-usual ranking in the RSCI, which features a points system that can reward quantity as much as quality, in some cases.

According to ESPN’s latest rankings, Kentucky is bringing in four top-100 transfers nationally, led by Tshiebwe (No. 7), along with former Davidson star Kellan Grady (No. 9), former Georgia point guard Sahvir Wheeler (No. 15) and former Iowa sharpshooter CJ Fredrick (No. 62).

Those players — combined with incoming recruits Daimion Collins (No. 12 in the final RSCI rankings), TyTy Washington (No. 14) and Bryce Hopkins (No. 33) — make for arguably the best group of newcomers in the country.

So, while the recruiting ranking might be lower and the makeup of Kentucky’s new players might be different, the level of expected talent hasn’t changed.

And UK could return to the top of the RSCI rankings next year.

Calipari was obviously in a spot this offseason where the transfer portal made the most sense as a source of instant-impact talent. But that might not be the case in future recruiting cycles.

Last week, the UK coach made it clear that he will still continue to prioritize top high school recruits, implying that he liked the more recent setup of adding a veteran transfer or two — Reid Travis and Nate Sestina, for example — to a group of incoming high school players.

“Here’s what I would say: If we go out and we get the kids that we want to recruit and we take a Reid, we take a Nate, we take, you know, that kind of player to do this and fill in,” Calipari said of an ideal scenario. “This year was different. This year we had injuries, we had shortages, we had a couple of transfers. All of a sudden, thank goodness we could tap into that (transfer) market. But it’s not something we’re saying that we’re just going to live by it.”

Top recruiting classes

Gonzaga led the way in the RSCI rankings, becoming just the second team outside of Kentucky and Duke to take the No. 1 spot over the last 13 years. The other was Memphis, which had the top-ranked class in 2019.

The Zags’ class features the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2021 cycle — 7-footer Chet Holmgren, who is joined by fellow top-100 players Hunter Sallis (No. 15), Nolan Hickman (No. 26) and Kaden Perry (No. 51). Hickman is a former Kentucky commitment.

Michigan is No. 2 in the RSCI rankings with a class featuring Caleb Houstan (No. 6), Moussa Diabate (No. 11), Kobe Bufkin (No. 40) and Frankie Collins (No. 41).

Tennessee is at No. 3 and the first Southeastern Conference program to finish ahead of Kentucky in the RSCI rankings since Calipari’s 2009 arrival. The Vols’ class includes star point guard Kennedy Chandler (No. 6), Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (No. 23), Jonas Aidoo (No. 39) and Jahmai Mashack (No. 65).

Longtime recruiting rival Duke is No. 4 with a class featuring a trio of former Kentucky targets: Paolo Banchero (No. 2), AJ Griffin (No. 18) and Trevor Keels (No. 19). With this week’s news of Mike Krzyzewski’s planned retirement after the 2021-22 season — and with the Blue Devils relatively quiet on the 2022 recruiting trail so far — it will be interesting to see how the program’s standing with elite recruits evolves over the next few years, with longtime assistant Jon Scheyer expected to be the next head coach in Durham.

Recruits to the pros

As Crume pointed out, this is yet another recruiting cycle that featured the professional route in a prominent position.

Technically, the pro route finished right behind Kentucky — the equivalent of the No. 6 spot in the recruiting rankings — with Jaden Hardy (No. 2), Michael Foster (No. 13) and Scoota Henderson (No. 75) all choosing to play in the G League next season. But Henderson’s final ranking is terribly low due to his late reclassification. He has not yet been inserted into the final 2021 rankings by Rivals.com, ESPN or Van Coleman, and — due to his status as a pro — he might never be ranked by some of those services. 247Sports placed him in the No. 10 overall spot on its final list, and it’s fair to predict that — if/when the other services rank Henderson — he’ll end up in a similar spot on those lists.

So, if the star point guard had been fairly and completely ranked, that would likely push the three-player professional “class” above Tennessee, Duke and Kentucky, into the No. 3 overall spot nationally.

Last year, the G League finished behind only blue-bloods Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina in the final RSCI rankings, and there appears to be a good chance that the pro route could be in for its highest ranking yet next year, with several of the nation’s top 10 high school recruits — most notably, Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren — expected to seriously consider the G League and other professional opportunities.

In fact, it’s possible — perhaps even probable — that the pro route accounts for the No. 1 “class” in the 2022 cycle.

The world of college basketball recruiting is obviously changing, and the latest RSCI rankings are just the latest example of the sport’s new reality.

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