Andrew Wiggins is expected to reclassify to the Class of 2013 and thus become eligible for the 2014 NBA Draft.
“Spoke to Andrew father Mitch,” Huntington (W.V.) Prep coach Rob Fulford said on Twitter. “Both he and Andrew are comfortable with him reclassifying to 2013. He wants to concentrate on school & season.”
The news was first reported by USA Today, which quoted Mitchell Wiggins, Andrew’s father and the former NBA player.
“It’s time,” Mitchell Wiggins told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s time for him (to show) that he is the best in college right now. I think he is ready for the next step. Academically-wise he is doing great. Maturity-wise he is doing great. He has a lot of talent. He is ready for the next step, and everybody knows it is time. It is Andrew’s time. Next year is coming soon and he is ready.”
One advantage of reclassifying is that Wiggins now becomes eligible for the 2013 McDonald’s All-American Game, as I covered in his previous column.
The 6-foot-8 Wiggins has long been courted by Kentucky and Florida State, the alma mater of his parents.
But coaches from North Carolina and Kansas have been in this week to visit him. He has also expressed interest in Ohio STate and Syracuse.
Kentucky has the longest-standing relationship with Wiggins and is the place most accustomed to producing one-and-done players, which Wiggins surely is.
“Wiggins’ dad, Mitchell, told me he likes [Kentucky assistant] Kenny Payne a lot and has great respect for Rod Strickland, as well as how Cal runs the UK team,” tweeted USA Today writer Eric Prisbell.
Wiggins’s brother, Nick, has also supported Kentucky.
“I would love to see him go to Kentucky,” Nick, a 6-foot-6 wing who attends Wichita State, told NorthPoleHoops.com about his younger brother.
Still, Fulford told SNY.tv that James Young’s recent commitment to Kentucky had emboldened other schools to recruit Wiggins harder and not to automatically assume it’s down to Kentucky and FSU.
“Andrew’s always said that it’s not just down to those two,” Fulford told SNY.tv earlier this week. “I don’t think anything’s really changed on his end. I think it’s maybe the perception of the coaches at the other schools kind of changed.”
Wiggins is regarded as the best player in North America not currently in the NBA, and could be the No. 1 pick in the 2014 Draft.
“I don’t see how anybody [else] is in the conversation right now,” one NBA Director of Scouting told SNY.tv recently.
And if Wiggins were to land at Kentucky in a class with the Harrison twins, Young and Marcus Lee, it could be the greatest recruiting class ever.
“On paper, for an NBA-type class certainly it’s the greatest of all time, you would think,” the Director of Scouting said by phone. “On paper it would be and yet there’s a lot to measure up to, too.”
