Dick Weiss top 25 recruiting summary for early period.
Kentucky has finished on top of the Men’s early season College Recruiting rankings, signing three of the top 20 prospects — 6-10 pf Trey Lyles of Indianapolis Arsenal, 7-1 center Karl owns of St. Joseph’s of Metuchen, N.J. and 6-5 guard Devon Booker of Moss Point, MS — in addition to Tyler Ullius, a top 50 point guard from Marian, Ill. Catholic. but the one they really wanted– small forward Stanley Johnson of Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, Calif.– got away, signing with Arizona.
The school that got the biggest impact players was Duke, which signed 6-10 Jahlil Okafor of Chicago Whitney Young, the best post player who play for Team USA Grass Roots teams in recent history. Okafor was was the MVP of the FIBA 18-and-under Americas tournament in 2012 and made the All Star team at the U19 World championships in Prague. Jones is considered the best point guard in the country. The two had talked about signing as a package for the past year and a half and were obviously lured by the fact Mike Krzyzewski has won four national titles two gold medals with Team USA’s senior men’s team in 2008 and 2012.
Once again the Chicagoland area produced the best high level prospects, but the Big Ten and DePaul came up short with 6-8 power forward Cliff Alexander of Chicago Curie..
Top 10 class rankings in terms of need.
1. Duke
2. Kentucky
3. North Carolina
4. Kansas
5. Arizona
6. Louisville
7. Ohio State
8. Maryland
9. Florida
10. Seton Hall
