It seems that a number of the nation’s top talent will be re-classifying this fall, including the top talents in the 2018 & 2019 classes, along with the forwards Emmanuel Akot and Jontay Porter.
Akot did so right at the end of the school year and has begun summer school at Arizona. He would have been among the Class of 2018’s top twenty (Mid-season #16) and gives Arizona one of top three classes in 2017 according to a number of recruiting rankings. Porter has been rumoured to be making the move to play one season with his brother at Missouri…but the #13 ranked talent in the Class of 2018 hasn’t made it official, but said as late as earlier this month at the EYBL, that he is leaning that way.
But, the big news that has broken over the past two weeks is the affirmation that both the top talents in the 2018 and 2019 classes will re-classify and move up a class this fall. One, Marvin Bagley III will be headed to college…most likely choosing between, Duke (visited), USC (visited), and Arizona (will visit this week). He will make his decision sometime next week. That will move him to the #2 spot in the class of 2017, just behind Michael Porter and ahead of DeAndre Ayton.
The second move, has our #1 rated rising junior, R.J. Barrett leaving the Class of 2019, to take Bagley’s spot at the top of the Class of 2018. I know some will say that Zion Williamson deserves the spot, but his just ok play in Vegas didn’t warrant him moving to top spot. Barrett has dominated in all levels of high school play and has a skill set that I believe moves him ahead of Williamson at this point.
We will be making adjustments to the rankings around Labor Day (to allow for any other surprises class-wise) after we evaluate the summer play and make adjustments to our rankings based on that play.