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Kentucky basketball recruiting: Mark Pope has offers out to these players in 2025 class

LEXINGTON — Kentucky basketball got on the board in the 2025 recruiting cycle last week, landing a commitment from in-state star Malachi Moreno.

But first-year UK coach Mark Pope and his staff are far from done. According to 247Sports, the Wildcats have offered scholarships to 17 other prospects in the 2025 class. Only one of them has committed elsewhere: Five-star point guard Darius Acuff Jr. gave his pledge to Arkansas (and former Kentucky coach) John Calipari last month.

But UK also appears out of the running for the country’s top player in 2025, AJ Dybantsa. The unquestioned No. 1 prospect according to every major recruiting service (Rivals, 247Sports, On3 and ESPN), Dybantsa cut his list of finalists to seven earlier this month; Kentucky, which had offered him, was not part of that group.

The Wildcats also are unlikely to sign another top-10 prospect they once had targeted, Meleek Thomas. The combo guard, ranked as the No. 6 overall player in the 2025 cycle per the 247Sports Composite, trimmed his list to seven schools last month and did not include UK.

Here is a look at the other uncommitted 2025 recruits with UK offers:

2025 RECRUITS WITH KENTUCKY OFFERS

Nate Ament

High school: Highland (Warrenton, Virginia)

Position: Power forward

247Sports Composite national ranking: 13

247Sports Composite position ranking: 5

What to know: Nate Ament, a 6-foot-9 power forward, picked up an offer from Kentucky in June. Now, he’s set to take an official visit to Lexington next week. It will be Ament’s first official visit to a college. He’ll do the same next month when he has an OV with Virginia. He holds offers from nearly every high-profile program in the country. A prospect who continues to ascend in the 2025 rankings, Ament isn’t expected to make a decision until after the early signing period concludes in November. He recently spoke highly of Pope and his staff. “Him at BYU, they were a great team, they shot a lot of 3s. That’s kind of attractive to me as a player,” Ament told…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/kentucky-basketball-recruiting-mark-pope-091751013.html

Author : The Courier Journal

Publish date : 2024-08-23 09:17:51

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