{"id":685829,"date":"2026-03-29T11:31:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/685829\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T11:31:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:31:35","slug":"2026-top-50-recruit-chris-washington-jr-drawing-interest-from-kentucky-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/685829\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 top-50 recruit Chris Washington Jr. drawing interest from Kentucky Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Even in the era of the transfer portal and NIL, fans of a team will still focus on and care about recruiting. That\u2019s especially the case with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aseaofblue.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Kentucky Wildcats<\/a>. Fans are already up in arms about Kentucky\u2019s recruiting for the class of 2026, or, in their case, lack thereof.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Only one player is signed for the class of 2026, after 4-star point guard Mason Williams announced his commitment to play for the Cats on Friday. On the board. Still work to do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Chris Washington Jr., an Alabama decommit and top-35 senior prospect, is a new target for Mark Pope and UK ahead of the spring signing period in mid-April. The staff reached out to his AAU coach, Bobby Maze, to gauge the athletic wing\u2019s potential interest. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/kentucky-wildcats\/news\/kentucky-reaches-out-to-26-four-star-chris-washington-jr\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">This is all according to Kentucky Sports Radio.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Washington is a 6-9, 195-pound forward who originally committed to Alabama, but decommitted in November. Kentucky is now included among the likes of Tennessee, Oregon, Oklahoma State, USC, and SMU that are interested in Washington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIt\u2019s a good program,\u201d Washington said of Kentucky while adding, \u201cHonestly, I just want to go where I\u2019m wanted \u2014 and the play style. I got to go where I fit in and where the coaches really want me. (My recruitment is) open. Whenever the time is right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Only four players ranked ahead of him remain available in 2026, including No. 1 Tyran Stokes. That tells you just how big of a prospect Washington will be in the spring signing period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Kentucky has swung and missed in recruiting a lot recently. But there is still time to get things moving in the right direction this spring on both the high school front and in the transfer portal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even in the era of the transfer portal and NIL, fans of a team will still focus on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-685829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kentucky-wildcats-basketball","10":"tag-kentucky-wildcats-mens-basketball-recruiting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116312243253915404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}