It's Been Long Overdue But Kentucky Hoops Finally Catches A Break In The Recruiting World

You know it’s about time that John Calipari and Kentucky caught a break with a big time recruit. Over the weekend it was announced that Ashton Hagans will graduate, reclassify and join Kentucky for this year. The point guard from Georgia is now the No. 2 point guard in the class of 2018 and a top-15 player on pretty much all scouting services.

Now, this isn’t a surprise. The talk of Hagans reclassifying has been discussed since he committed to Kentucky. He draws a lot of comparisons to De’Aaron Fox and John Wall, two guys who obviously had a ton of success at Kentucky. He has that type of quickness and the ability to get into a second gear that makes him a special player.

Hagans is a 6’4″ guard, who was originally committed to Georgia before decommitting with the firing of Mark Fox. He’s a defensive-minded guard as well, who likes to get in the shorts of his opponent. He’s not the best shooter, but is excellent at breaking guys down off the dribble and either finishing or finding the open teammate.

Kentucky is now on the shortlist of favorites to win the title for next season as they have an absolutely loaded recruiting class with Hagans, Immanuel Quickley, Tyler Herro, Keldon Johnson and EJ Montgomery. They join Quade Green, Nick Richards and PJ Washington from last year’s Sweet 16 team.

Another guy Kentucky gets is Jermarl Baker, who missed all of last year due to injury and is known for being one of the best shooters in the class of 2017. Kentucky is also the favorite to land Stanford’s Reid Travis as a grad transfer, giving them one of the deeper teams in the country and the deepest team since Calipari used the platoon system. Don’t expect to see that though, but rather just a balanced use of minutes.

Here’s the obligatory Ashton Hagans mixtape: