Will NC State basketball beat out Kentucky for this five-star recruit? Experts say yes

Will N.C. State basketball land the top recruit of the Kevin Keatts era this week?

As of late Monday, it’s looking like a reality.

For months, five-star 2023 point guard Robert Dillingham had been considered a Kentucky lock. But after a flurry of overnight predictions kicked off by a national recruiting analyst, the Hickory native and No. 1 point guard recruit in the nation’s junior class is picking up major steam to choose the Wolfpack instead.

Hours after Dillingham locked in a verbal commitment date for Wednesday at 2 p.m., Travis Branham of 247Sports logged what he described as a “new and unexpected” high-confidence Crystal Ball prediction for Dillingham to choose N.C. State. By Tuesday afternoon, five other analysts had predicted the same.

That puts Keatts in strong position to land the top-ranked prospect of his coaching tenure and beat out a number of college basketball recruiting stalwarts – Kentucky, Kansas, LSU and Memphis – in the process.

As a 0.9966 overall recruit in the 247Sports composite rankings, Dillingham would also rank as the Wolfpack’s No. 2 all-time recruit in the internet era, beating out players such as C.J. Leslie, J.J. Hickson, Rodney Purvis and T.J. Warren and only trailing Dennis Smith, the high-flying five-star Fayetteville point guard recruit in the class of 2016.

Dillingham rose to stardom over two seasons at Lincolnton’s Combine Academy, an independent school outside Charlotte coached by former UNC and NBA guard Jeff McInnis. Then, in October, Dillingham transferred to the Kanye West-backed startup Donda Academy in Simi Valley, Calif., for his junior year.

N.C. State gained traction with Dillingham – at one point a top 2023 target for rival UNC – through an unofficial visit this summer and a second unofficial visit this fall. The Wolfpack subsequently landed on the 6-foot-2 point guard’s top five schools list alongside Kentucky, Kansas, LSU and Memphis on Nov. 3.

In an early November evaluation, Jerry Meyer, 247Sports’ director of basketball scouting, projected Dillingham as a future NBA first-round draft with top 10 potential and compared him to Darius Garland, the former Vanderbilt star and No. 5 overall 2019 draft pick now playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Dillingham “possesses a special feel (for) space and time on the court,” Meyer wrote, and “combines this awareness with an elite burst of quickness to gain separation.” He concluded that the guard has “tremendous upside as a dynamic playmaker who just needs to gain strength and mass as he develops.”

One thing to monitor: Dillingham has, in the past, expressed interest in a non-traditional route into the NBA (such as the G League Ignite team or Overtime Elite) as opposed to a more traditional college route.

Under Keatts, N.C. State has lost two highly rated verbal commits to similar situations: four-star 2019 combo guard Jalen Lecque and four-star 2020 small forward Josh Hall both opted to directly enter the NBA Draft directly out of high school (after a post-graduate year) instead of playing college basketball for the Wolfpack in Raleigh.

Chapel Fowler is a recruiting reporter for The Fayetteville Observer and the USA TODAY Network. Reach him by email at cfowler@gannett.com or on Twitter at @chapelfowler.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: NC State basketball closing in on five-star recruit Robert Dillingham