A few days after losing to Indiana in the NCAA Tournament, Kentucky coach John Calipari traveled to New Jersey to watch 2017 St. Patrick’s big man Nick Richards and 2018 Roselle Catholic big man Naz Reid.
Calipari saw the 6-foot-11 Richards on Monday at St. Pat’s and the 6-9 Reiz on Tuesday at Roselle Catholic. Kentucky has already offered Richards, but has yet to offer Reid.
Seton Hall associate head coach Shaheen Holloway also saw Reid on Tuesday, as first reported by Andrew Slater of 247Sports.com.
Calipari has had success at both schools, landing both Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Dakari Johnson from St. Pat’s, the New Jersey Catholic powerhouse that also produced former Duke star Kyrie Irving. Kentucky freshman guard Isaiah Briscoe played at Roselle Catholic and is a former teammate of Reid.
Karl Anthony-Towns also played for St. Joe’s-Metuchen in New Jersey before becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft.
Richards is a 6-foot-11 native of Jamaica who has only been playing organized ball for about three years. He remains pretty raw offensively but is a force in the paint defensively and has the frame and potential to have a bright career ahead.
“[Calipari] just wanted to let me know he’s interested in me improving,” Richards told SNY.tv. “He was just telling me about how he’s going to get me better and put me on a stage to succeed.”
Asked if he feels Calipari wants him, Richards said, “Yeah, he does.”
Richards said he will likely visit Kentucky sometime during his senior season, possibly for Big Blue Madness.
“I can’t give you a date but probably sometime during my senior year,” Richards said.
Richards holds offers from the likes of Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, UConn, Villanova, Indiana, Syracuse, and UCLA.
This marks the second time this year Calipari has been into St. Pat’s to see him. In October, Calipari and two assistants visited Richards at the school.
Syracuse assistant Adrian Autry watched him at practice on last month.
“I’m not really looking at recruiting right now but Kentucky is a really big interest for me right now,” Richards said.
Richards is somewhat familiar with former Kentucky bigs like Towns, Johnson and Kidd-Gilchrist from the Garden State.
“Of course, I would like to become better than every player,” he said. “I’m just trying to see what school will make me better, that’s my main goal.”
As far as his summer plans, he will play with Expressions Elite on the Nike EYBL circuit.
“I want to work on my overall game,” he said. “Getting my hands better, conditioning, dribbling the ball, post moves, just my overall game I’m trying to get better.
Former Rutgers coach Mike Rice coached St. Pat’s this season and is well aware of Richards’ upside.
“It’s not fair to the rest of people playing basketball that someone that size and that strong can move that well,” Rice said last month. “And it’s not maybe just running up-and-down. It’s how quickly he gets off his feet. He brings such a dimension-you’re going to get by our perimeter defenders, and now you have a 6-11 kid who has such control of his body and understands the timing of blocking shots and defending.”
“In my eyes, he’s the best big man in the country,” said senior teammate Bryce Aiken, a four-star Harvard commit. “He obviously has a lot to work on. But I believe that he’ll eventually be a pro one day.”
As for Reid, Seton Hall and Syracuse are among those recruiting him the hardest, although he still has two years of high school left.
“Naz is really starting to come along,” RC coach Dave Boff said last month. “Early in the year, I was asking for a little bit more consistent effort and stuff, but he’s really come on. His maturity has fast-tracked, his leadership has fast-tracked, and he’s playing just tremendous basketball for 32 minutes a game.”
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