Kentan Facey
Rivals and Scout list Kentan Facey as a three-star recruit. ESPN gives him only two stars. Expect that to change when the next batch of rankings come out.
Facey’s recruitment has taken off in the past couple of weeks after standout performances at the LeBron James Skills Academy and last weekend’s Adidas Invitational. Just a few months ago, the Jamaica native told Newsday that his goal was to play Division I basketball. Now Facey has college coaches at the highest level calling him with scholarship offers. And Kentucky could be next.
According to CBS, UK was among the schools following Facey over the weekend. The Cats haven’t promised him a scholarship yet, but several other top programs have. Louisville, Memphis, UCLA, Pittsburgh, Xavier, USC, and Virginia Tech were among the most recent schools to offer. He already had offers from UConn, Florida and St. John’s before last week.
“Kentucky was (in Indianapolis) and they saw him and like him a lot,” AAU coach Karriem Meminger told Rivals.com. “They said he’s better than a lot of the big guys in his class.” Meminger added that UK plans to watch Facey at next week’s Fab 48 event in Las Vegas. Meminger also said that Rick Pitino told him Facey “plays like he’s gonna die tomorrow.”
Facey, a 6-foot-8, 200-pound power forward, will be a senior at Long Island (N.Y.) Lutheran and has only been in the United States for a couple of years. His parents are still in Jamaica. Facey’s prep basketball career has followed a similar path as Samardo Samuels, who was discovered by the same camp in Jamaica before moving to the United States, becoming one of the elite recruits in his class, and playing for Pitino at Louisville. Samuels now plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
While Facey has said he’s wide open in his recruitment, that’s the kind of path he’d like to follow. And UK could be the destination.
“I’m looking for a school that has a really good engineering program,” he told Scout.com on Monday. “A school that gets players ready for the next level, because I’m definitely shooting for that after college. … A good coaching staff with a good resume.”
Here is wishing that he is not all hype, that he wants to go here and we offer and most of all he stays graduates and then goes pro with an engineering degree.