Kentucky has yet to get their first commit of the 2026 recruiting class, but are in hot pursuit of several top prospects. With official visit season underway, the Wildcats have hosted several, most recently Deron Rippey Jr.
Ranked 11th overall and the top-ranked point guard in the 247Sports Composite, Rippey made his official visit to Lexington this week, the fourth of seven visits. While on campus he received his pitch and toured the campus, but he also go to spend time with Otega Oweh, who attended the same high school, and took in Kentucky’s annual Pro Day.
KY Insider caught up with his father following the visit.
Advertisement
About halfway through the visits, what’s the process been like? I know you all are taking your time, but has it been overwhelming? Are you enjoying it?
No, the process has been good. You know, we’re just trying to feel every school now that we narrowed it down to our top nine. Get on campus, and just let them be able to present. We get to see, visit and talk to some people while we’re there.
You finally got to Lexington, how was the visit? What were the things that you were really looking for?
The visit was awesome. It was great. You know, I think Ron Ron, my wife, you know, we expected nothing less. Everything that we wanted to hear, we heard. Just being able to see what Kentucky has been doing the last year and getting to know that campus.
What were the things that you were really looking for?
Just making sure he can come in and have the ball right away. Be able to help lead Kentucky to a conference championship, and then to the final four and to a national championship. That’s the standard at Kentucky, their core value.
What was the best part of the visit?
The best part was just spending time with the coaching staff and allowing them to be able to show us around. Talk with the administration, strength and conditioning, nutrition, academic advisor, AD. Watching pro day and spending time with the players, and watching how the players bond and connect.
Advertisement
What makes this Kentucky coaching staff so relatable?
Just being honest and transparent. They don’t recruit everybody. I’ve built relationships with all those guys in a different capacity, from Coach AB, to even Coach Fox. Coach Fox played at my junior college, Garden City, Kansas, and he played at Eastern New Mexico, where we both attended. These guys are transparent and they want to utilize Ron Ron, seeing him as a good fit for what they’re trying to do.
I know the pitch has been come and be a point guard at Kentucky, but how are they pitching being a point guard at Kentucky different from another school?
The pitch, they want to win a national championship. Can you get it done? That’s the thing. Ron Ron has won at Blair Academy, two back-to-back state championships. He’s going for his third. He brings that winning pedigree, and, of course, Kentucky is the highest. Playing in a great league on the highest level, then one of the top programs to have contributed to the NCAA.
This staff is very analytically driven. Did they show any analytics, and how so?
Yeah. From the point position, the things that he can create, and the things that he’s able to do. Showed a lot of analytics toward him being a two-way player.
It’s only been one season, what are your impressions of Mark Pope and the culture he’s building at Kentucky?
I think it’s great. I think Kentucky’s back. When you look at Kentucky, everybody is used to them winning, having a lot of success. I think he [Pope] won the most top 25 games in his first year as coach. He’s definitely going to play any and everybody. Him being a former player, winning the national championship, expectations, the goals. I know they want to be a part of that. So he’s pushing that. He talked so much about winning a championship and getting Kentucky back to Kentucky, right? Letting people know, like, hey, this is the place.
Advertisement
What stood out about the way Kentucky recruits compared to other schools?
The coaching staff was great. Everybody built a relationship with my son. Watching the guys, how they interact on the court and then off the court. After practice, after the pro day, eating together, playing 2K in the locker room. It’s bonding. It’s a great brotherhood, a great brotherhood. As a dad, I loved that.
Otega, a Blair Academy alum, what has he said to guys about Kentucky?
Absolutely. He wants Ron and Ron to come there. He thinks it would be a great opportunity. He speaks highly of Coach Pope and the Kentucky family. Everything that they said was happening. he’s been a part of it, and he loves it down there. He also talked about winning a championship. Trying to provide a championship for Kentucky and their friends and for coaching staff. He wants Ron Ron to come there after he leaves and, you know, continue on.
How would you say this visit compared to other schools?
We feel great about it. It’s at the top with a couple of the schools. Taking all these visits, you get to analyze and see and talk with coaching staff, people in the community, the players. You get to be around it, so it’s a different feel. The excitement, tradition, you know, the standards is always high. The vision that the coaches have for my son. We were definitely impressed. We feel great about it.
Your son played on the Adidas circuit. There are NIL opportunities there. How much does Adidas impact the recruitment?
Adidas, they just want Ron Ron to represent wherever he goes to college and be who he is. I think that Adidas is also happy that a kid like that, that’s on the top of the 2026 class, played on their circuit. So they’re not trying to push my son to any Adidas school. We have some schools that are Adidas schools that have great coaches, new coaches, trying to build their program. You know, they’re just like Kentucky. They tell Ron Ron to come there, they have the ball of your hands and you’ll be able to build this up. We’re just going through the process, but Adidas nor Nike has really to do with my son’s decision.
Advertisement
There are still visits to be taken, and I know you’ve said there is no timeline yet, but could we see this go into the spring, past the transfer portal to see how rosters shake out?
It all depends on Ron Ron. After we take these visits, we sit down, we reflect. We have a system that my wife and my son to be able to sit down and make some assessments, and then now we’re down to five schools. Then those five schools will have a period to continue to recruit. Be able to speak with him. Then we’ll come up with a timeline after we get down the five.
There is a lot of smoke around Tyran Stokes right now. Hypothetically, how would you all feel about playing alongside him at Kentucky?
He would embrace it. These are two players that played against each other since they were seven or eight, two players that are highly competitive. They’ve been competing against each other at USA. Them two being on the same team. They have the same goal. The goal is to win a championship, right? And then the goal is to make it to the NBA. So, you know two talented players, number ones at their position. They got a good chance to play together, you know, the way that Coach Pope has a great recruit class that he’s trying to recruit.
With the July live period open, Kentucky head coach Mark Pope and his staff are making moves on the recruiting trail, offering 2026 five-star prospect Cam Williams.
The 6-foot-11, 200-pound forward from St. Mary’s High School in Phoenix received the offer Wednesday night during a call with Pope and assistant coach Jason Hart, Williams told Jacob Polacheck of KSR.
Williams is considered a top-20 player in the class according to the 247 Sports Composite rankings. He is ranked as the No. 9 overall prospect in the nation by Rivals as the No. 3 power forward and the No. 16 overall prospect in the class.
Advertisement
He has an official visit to Lexington scheduled for September 26-28.
“I like how they put guys in the league,” Williams told Polacheck. “They have a lot of big names who are playing currently, like SGA, KAT and AD. They have a long list of really good pros. I like how they play as a team. I watched a couple of their games last year. Obviously, they’re one of the top teams. It’s a school I could see myself fitting in at, playing there and all of that stuff.”
In addition to Kentucky, Williams has visits lined up with Texas (Sept. 3–5), Purdue (Sept. 12–14), Duke (Oct. 3–5) and USC (Oct. 11–12).
Taylen Kinney, one of the top guards in the 2026 class and the No. 1 point guard in Kentucky, will take an official visit with the Wildcats beginning on June 24.
The Newport, Kentucky native has been inserted in a bit of a bidding war with Louisville and other premier schools after his official visit with the Cardinals, but of course the true recruiting powerhouse had to cast a line in hope of a bite.
KSR’s Jack Pilgrim caught a video of Kinney working with Mark Pope one-on-one on the morning of June 17 at the USA U19 Training Camp in Colorado Springs.
Advertisement
Mark Pope got some one-on-one time with Tay Kinney during his time in Colorado Springs
Thought to be a head-to-head battle between Kentucky and Louisville for the top-20 recruit’s commitment
A picture of Kinney, along with Malachi Moreno and Jasper Johnson, two of Kentucky’s incoming freshman on this year’s squad, came out of the camp. Tyran Stokes, the No. 1 player in the class of 2026, who already took a visit to Kentucky recently, was also shown in the picture. All four players are Kentucky natives.
Taylen Kinney, Tyran Stokes, Malachi Moreno, and Jasper Johnson all participating with Team USA (U19).
Kinney is a priority for Kentucky, and Pope planting the idea of being a Wildcat in his mind this past weekend certainly builds the hype of his commitment being a future reality.
However, we can’t act like Pat Kelsey hasn’t already beat Pope to the punch, and it may be too late to change Kinney’s mind on being a Cardinal.
“I probably talk to coach Kelsey twice a week,” Kinney said. “He talks to my parents multiple times a week. I talk to the whole staff all of the time.”
Advertisement
He later added on some words that no Wildcat fan would want to hear.
“They (Louisville’s staff) just told me that I was their guy,” Kinney said. “I fit perfectly into their system, and there’s no other school that I fit better into than them.
A common member of Big Blue Nation would likely think “yeah alright, wait until you get that Kentucky treatment,” and with the climate of today’s recruiting trail, who knows what can happen.
It will likely be a long time before the star guard makes an official decision, but who doesn’t like a good back-and-forth between two rival programs. The bell has already rung, and round one goes to the Cardinals, but the Wildcats are coming out swinging for round two.
Being from Louisville doesn’t necessarily make you a cardinal, and Mark Pope has set out to prove that in the biggest possible way.
The top-ranked overall recruit in next year’s class, Tyran Stokes, officially took a visit to Lexington on Sunday, June 8. This comes in lieu of many rumors that he’d canceled his visit altogether due to frustration with fans trying to dig for information online.
Last month in a cryptic post on X, Stokes said, “Why can’t y’all give a kid some privacy”. As curious as that was, especially given the proximity to his originally planned visit to Kentucky, it seems that the true issue had no bearing on his choice to hear Coach Pope’s plea.
Advertisement
And, as Kentucky fans now know, sometimes that’s all it takes to get a guy in blue and white.
The Louisville native, at 6’7, 230, has become widely renowned for his strong slashing ability as a multi-threat scorer on the wing. Stokes is the sort of player that, nobody who you already have on your team, you make room for him. He’s got an intangible build made for the big leagues, and he’s not even out of high school yet.
Stokes is the kind of guy that’d have NBA scouts sitting court side in Rupp Arena. While that level of national buzz isn’t always a good thing, it’s hard to underscore the possibility, and excitement, of the top recruit in the nation committing to the Cats come 2026.
In the very least, Kentucky is in the race, alongside Kansas and Louisville as heavy pursuers. It’s never too early to look ahead, and, as usual, Pope and staff are doing just that with the biggest names in the game.
Men's Basketball6 days ago
Men's Basketball1 week ago