To round out its 2025 recruiting class, Kentucky basketball must start from scratch. During the November early signing period, head coach Mark Pope and the Wildcats signed three high school prospects to their 2025 recruiting class: left-handed guards Jasper Johnson and Acaden Lewis, and center Malachi Moreno. However, UK has been rather quiet since then, with a big miss on the recruiting path this week. Early Friday morning, five-star power forward Caleb Wilson, the 247Sports Composite’s No. 6 national recruit in the 2025 class, chose North Carolina over Kentucky. Wilson also considered Ohio State as a finalist during his recruiting.
Wilson’s recruitment was a close race down the line between UK and UNC, but it was announced Friday that Wilson had decided by the end of December. Losing Wilson — a 6-foot-9 talent with great defensive skills and offensive upside — is a setback for Pope and the Wildcats, especially given UK was considered the favorite to land Wilson following his official recruiting visit to Lexington in September. With Wilson out of the picture and on his way to Chapel Hill, what happens next in UK basketball recruiting?
Nate Ament is the top-ranked prospect still available in the UK.
In terms of the 2025 high school recruiting class, UK’s focus has shifted to Nate Ament, a 6-foot-10 power forward from Virginia. The 247Sports Composite ranks Ament as a five-star prospect and the No. 4 national recruit in the 2025 class, and he has UK on his top-11 list of schools. This month, Ament stated that he is still considering the following colleges: Alabama, Arkansas, BYU, Duke, Georgetown, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, Notre Dame, Tennessee, and Texas.
Ament’s recruiting has included official visits to Louisville (October), Notre Dame (November), Tennessee (October), and Texas (September). On Thursday, Louisville coach Pat Kelsey and assistant Thomas Carr traveled to Virginia to speak with Ament. There were intentions for Ament to make an official recruiting trip to Kentucky last August, but they never materialized. Pope and the UK coaching team extended Ament a scholarship offer in June.
Pope and his coaching staff have seen Ament play live several times, including this summer on the Adidas grassroots circuit in South Carolina and the FIBA Under-18 AmeriCup in Argentina. Ament and Johnson were teammates on the United States’ gold medal-winning AmeriCup team. Ament told ESPN in December that he expected to visit Kentucky in February, as well as watch Duke host North Carolina on February 1 and Kansas State host Arizona on February 11.
“Mark Pope has come here several times. He’s a really energetic coach. “He instills that in his players,” Ament told ESPN last month. “By keeping an eye on his team, he positions his players for success. Their spacing is quite good. It’s a highly engaging concept, and Coach Pope is an excellent figure. “You can feel his energy.” When Ament talked with 247Sports last month after a game at the Hoophall Classic in Massachusetts, he made no mention of an expected visit to Kentucky, despite being first recruited by Pope while at BYU. During his conversation with 247Sports, Ament stated that he planned to commit in February or March.
According to MassLive, Ament may visit a third school, in addition to Duke and Kansas State, before his recruiting is completed. “Player development and the family aspect of the team,” Ament told MassLive about what he will look for when making a college commitment. “Those are the most important two: making sure I’m safe wherever I go. And I know I’ll be taken care of at all of my schools, but who do I have the best relationship with, who will put me in situations that will challenge me to improve, and who will let me play through my mistakes?
Ament is the top recruit in the 2025 class who has yet to commit to a school.
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