Recruiting by the Numbers: Class of 2018
Today was the opening day of the fall signing period for basketball and several young men across the Commonwealth signed their national letters of intent to attend colleges all over the country. The 2018 class has shown good depth from top to bottom. Here’s a quick look at how the class stacks up historically. All information is based on our Prep Hoops Rankings for the classes of 2015-2018. For purposes of this article, we will include kids who went to prep school and reclassified in their original classes and not in their post graduate class.
High Major Signees:
2015: 4
2016: 3 (including Eli Wright and Braxton Beverly)
2017: 1 (Currently in prep school Chance Moore)
2018: 2
For my money, the 2015 class is the best class of basketball players we have seen in Kentucky in a while and these numbers affirm that. Although Cameron Justice has transferred from Vanderbilt to IUPUI, Dwayne Sutton went from UNC-Asheville to Louisville. Covington Catholic teammates Jake Walter and CJ Fredrick are the lone high major signees in 2018 at this point.
D1 Signees:
2015: 22 (including prep school products Tanner Johnson, Jax Levitch, Corey Douglas and Justin Miller)
2016: 9
2017: 14
2018: 11 (3 other members of the class have commitable D1 offers but haven’t committed anywhere yet)
This list doesn’t include walk-ons like Tyler Sharpe (started at Louisville, now at NKU) or Treyce Spurlock and Austin Crawford at Morehead State. Also, 4 of the top 16 players in our 2017 rankings are now going through a prep year and reclassifying (Trace Young, Jaylen Sebree, Tavin Lovan and Damon Tobler). Of the 22 signees in 2015, only 11 are still with the schools they signed with and at least 3 of the signees are not even playing basketball anymore, according to my research.
D2/NAIA Signees:
2015: 13
2016: 13
2017: 16
2018: 4
Look for the 2018 number to grow as there are over a dozen prospects that will be good D2 or NAIA players and are likely to sign with a school at that level by graduation. While the 2017 class didn’t have a ton of mid and high major kids, they have a whole lot of kids going to college for free thanks to basketball.
Juco Signees:
2015: 8 (including current D1 players Jeremiah Bell and David Simmons)
2016: 5 (including future D1 signee Isaiah Tisdale)
2017: 9
2018: TBD
The 2015 class shows it’s depth again by having multiple D1 players coming out of the junior college ranks. There will undoubtedly wind up being several junior college signees in the 2018 class but those kids won’t commit and sign until the end of the school year.
D3 signees:
2015: 19
2016: 12
2017: 8
2018: TBD
The 2015 and 2016 class rankings are much longer than the 2017 and 2018 rankings. So they benefit from the more depth in the rankings. Many of the 2018 players who head the D3 route will make those commitments in the spring time.
Conclusions:
So, when you stack up the 2018 class against the classes that have come before it, the class could wind up being the second best group to come through Kentucky in the last 4 years. And 5 years from now, we may see that the class winds up being the best to come out of Kentucky in a while, depending on how kids develop their games over their college careers. One thing is for certain, the numbers of signees in this class will grow between now and graduation. Do not be surprised if there are several more kids signing to play college basketball when the spring signing period comes around.