UK targets Adreian Payne, Joe Jackson showing interest
With July AAU events coming to a close in the next few days in Las Vegas and Orlando, news is coming out about players scheduling official visits and narrowing lists. Two UK targets, Adreian Payne and Joe Jackson, are among that group of players.
5 star post player Adreian Payne has announced that his list is down to 5 (conveniently the same amount of official visits allowed each player). The schools are Kentucky, West Virginia, Kansas, Arizona, and Michigan State. Payne visited Lexington unofficially back in June, so this is an indication that the visit went well.
Based on what I have heard, Huggy Bear and West Virginia are UK’s biggest competition here, but Calipari is definitely in the mix.
Also, news has come out this weekend that top point guard Joe Jackson will visit UK officially in October, aka Big Blue Madness. Matt Jones talks about the gathering of high school stars that John Calipari is trying to put together for Calipari’s first official practice as UK coach, so it’s a possibility Payne could be a part of this as well.
Joe Jackson
Jackson, even though UK is on the list of the three other top ranked point guards (Brandon Knight, Josh Selby, and Kyrie Irving), is still a top target of the staff. Jackson is a Memphis kid and will be difficult to pry away from Memphis, but if Calipari puts the full court press on Jackson, it will be hard for him to resist in my opinion.
Category: Kentucky
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I will lose all respect for Joe Jackson’s high school and AAU coach if they allow him to come to UK. Yes, John Wall will be gone but Eric Bledsoe will still be there along with Brandon Knight, why would you want to be number 3 on the bench?
Doesn’t make sense.
I’m not going to lie, I like the fact that you’re conceding Brandon Knight to UK already. I think, though, that this year is going to prove that two point guards can play at the same time in the DDMO. Besides, Bledsoe and Jackson are true points, Knight (and Selby for that matter) have evolved into 2 guards who can run the point because of their ball skills.
UK targets all of the top guys but will only get a few. Wall will jump after a year but you won’t have two top level PG’s who’d be willing to sit behind Bledsoe, if he has a strong frosh year.
Kyrie Iriving may be in the UK running as well but Duke and Coach K have increased their interest in him as of late.
I do not see Irving at Duke. I say he ends up running the point for Tom Crean’s first good IU team.