Shooting guard Antonio Blakeney, the No. 13 player in the country according to Rivals, has re-opened his recruitment less than two weeks after committing to Louisville, according to Evan Daniels of Scout. Blakeney has reportedly already set four visits, including one to in-state rival Kentucky:
Antonio Blakeney decommits from Louisville
Rick Pitino’s 2015 recruiting class lost a big player on Monday night.
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Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
Per a source Blakeney will now schedule visits to Oregon, UK, LSU, & MISSOURI
— CourtCred (@courtcred) September 16, 2014 Blakeney recently Louisville's fourth commitment in the class of 2015, joining guard Donovan Mitchell, big man Ray Spalding and wing Deng Adel. With all four players ranked in top 40 of the class according to Rivals, the Cardinals had a big claim to sporting the best recruiting class in the country at this point in the process.
While it’s unclear why Blakeney decided to decommit so quickly after his verbal, 247 Sports’ Jerry Meyer threw out one theory:
I don't play up shoe company angle in basketball recruiting but decommitment of Antonio Blakeney from Louisville is shoe company related.
— Jerry Meyer (@jerrymeyer247) September 16, 2014 Amongst other things, tough to play in Jordan Game & Nike Hoop Summit when u played AAU for Nike & then commit to adidas school on 1st visit
— Jerry Meyer (@jerrymeyer247) September 16, 2014 Louisville is an adidas school, and Blakeney’s Each 1 Teach 1 summer ball team is sponsored by Nike. On Each 1 Teach 1, Blakeney is a teammate of forward Ben Simmons, considered by many to be the top player in the class.
LSU, which already has a commitment from Simmons, and Kentucky were two of the schools heavily involved with Blakeney before he decided to give a verbal to Louisville.
Here’s footage of Blakeney on the grassroots circuit earlier this year:
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