College Basketball: Breaking down R.J. Barrett’s final three schools

Barrett’s fit at Kentucky

Coach Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats are well-known as a program that does a tremendous job recruiting top prospects and sending them to the NBA. In his eight years with the program, Cal has coached 18 one-and-done players who are still in the NBA (2.25 one-and-done’s per year).

Cal’s ability to turn top talent into not only NBA players, but NBA stars is remarkable. There are a lot of top recruits who take steps back in college and struggle to make it at the next level, but Kentucky gets it done. For Barrett’s NBA future, this could be his best potential landing spot.

As far as Barrett’s potential role, Kentucky’s 2018-19 roster is largely unsigned at this point. Due to the fact that Kentucky plays with several one-and-done prospects, the team experiences tremendous year-to-year roster overhaul. With this being said, the 2018-19 starting lineup will be mostly made up of recruits signed from the class of 2018.

For right now, the only 2018 recruit signed by Kentucky is point guard Immanuel Quickley, a top-10 recruit. If Barrett is to sign with the Wildcats, he will join Quickley as a projected starter that can be used both as a recruit that can be built around with the remainder of the class.

There are several other top recruits that being chased by Kentucky, including Zion Williamson, and Barrett could be used to convince those players to join ranks.