The Kentucky men’s basketball program suffered its first recruiting heartbreak of the Mark Pope Era on Thursday night as Caleb Wilson, one of the Class of 2025’s highest touted five-star prospects, committed to North Carolina over the Cats.
Per 247Sports’ composite rankings, Wilson is listed as the ninth overall recruit and the fourth best power forward in the nation, along with being tagged as the No. 1 overall prospect in the state of Georgia.
“I will be committing on NBA on TNT tonight after the Celtics game because of the platform and the show’s presence in the city of Atlanta and I will be choosing from UK and UNC,” Wilson told On3.
Wilson revealed his long-awaited decision surrounded by some of the greatest in the sport, sitting alongside Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith. Confetti rained and Rameses, the official UNC mascot, appeared from the back, sending a shot to the heart across all UK fans.
The traction between UK and Wilson started strong, but suddenly hydroplaned over the past few days as UK seemed to be in the driver’s seat for most of the recruitment process.
“A couple of weeks ago, maybe even early last week, I did think that Kentucky was the firm leader,” Joe Tipton of On3 said on Kentucky Sports Radio’s show, Here Comes the Boom. “In my opinion, the Wildcats made a lot of sense. Mark Pope has really taken this Kentucky program to really high hopes this season. Wilson, it really felt like, was trending that way to UK.”
Wilson made his way up to Lexington back in September for an official visit where he stopped at UK’s basketball practice, went to Kentucky football’s home game versus Georgia and even made his way to Keeneland.
Now, without Wilson, Kentucky’s 2025 recruiting class remains the same, consisting of four-star guard Jasper Johnson, four-star guard Acaden Lewis and four-star center Malachi Moreno. Those three have assembled the No. 6 recruiting class in the nation on 247Sports’ 2025 rankings, sitting behind Duke (1), Houston (2), UConn (3), Arkansas (4) and Notre Dame (5).