Kentucky basketball made the top 8 cut for one of the top point guards in the 2026 class.
Tay Kinney, the Newport, Kentucky native, announced his top 8 schools earlier today, and the Wildcats made the cut. Also included were Louisville, Arkansas, Indiana, Texas, Oregon, Miami, and Kansas.
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Auburn, Purdue, Tennessee, and Xavier were cut from the list.
Kinney ranks as one of the top point guards in the 2026 recruiting class. The 6-foot-2 guard is considered a 5-star prospect and is viewed as a top-15 prospect by most recruiting services.
Here’s what Kinney had to say about Kentucky regarding his recruitment in an interview with Joe Tipton.
Kentucky: “Really good visit. The team this year, the way they was practicing, the way they play, that really stood out. We hung out with (Mark) Pope at their house, went out to dinner, and watched a practice. They play fast, get up and down, and shoot a lot of threes.”
Kinney really shined in the recent NBPA Top-100 Camp, earning First-Team honors by averaging about 22 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists per game.
This will be a hotly contested recruitment moving forward. Kinney has already made visits to Kentucky and Louisville, and has multiple scheduled visits coming up, including a scheduled visit to Kansas this weekend and a trip to Arkansas near the end of September.
