Major Kentucky basketball recruiting target will announce college decision this week
Five-star basketball recruit Robert Dillingham is ready to make his college announcement.
Dillingham — a 6-foot-2 combo guard from Hickory, N.C. — will reveal his college choice at 2 p.m. Wednesday, and Kentucky came into this week as the major favorite in his recruitment.
As of Monday evening, UK had all five of the Crystal Ball predictions on Dillingham’s 247Sports page, along with all four picks on his Rivals.com FutureCast page. Several national analysts on both pages put in predictions in favor of the Wildcats.
That’s now shifting.
247Sports analyst Travis Branham, who covered Dillingham’s team at an event over the weekend, changed his Crystal Ball pick from Kentucky to North Carolina State late Monday night. Shortly after that change, 247Sports analysts Eric Bossi and Brandon Jenkins also switched their predictions from UK to the Wolfpack.
N.C. State was seen in recent days as the program that had the best shot at keeping the star guard out of Lexington.
Dillingham is the No. 8 overall player in the 2023 class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, and he’s viewed as one of the top perimeter scorers in the country, regardless of class. He recently transferred from a prep school in his home state of North Carolina to play his junior season at Donda Academy (Calif.), the new prep school backed by Kanye West.
Kentucky hosted Dillingham for an official visit earlier this fall, and the Wildcats had been seen as heavy favorites since that trip. He’s also considering Louisiana State, Memphis, N.C. State and Kansas. He’s taken visits to LSU, Memphis and N.C. State.
UK has one commitment so far for the 2023 class: five-star combo guard Reed Sheppard, who told the Herald-Leader last week that he would welcome playing alongside Dillingham and fellow combo guard DJ Wagner, the No. 1 recruit in the 2023 class and another major Kentucky target.
