In January, Skyy’s father told me that they would be moving to Brentwood Academy in Tennessee and to keep it quiet. In the same conversation, he called Kentucky their “dream school” and said that they were looking forward to being recruited by them. Kentucky told the Clark’s that Skyy was “their guy” for 2022.
Later on, in February, I had dinner with the Clark family while they were in town. They said that they were going to commit on the spot when they got an offer. Throughout the next few months, his father would text me saying things about playing in Lexington, saying they were locking in with Kentucky ASAP, Calipari gifs, etc.
You have to remember, throughout this, Skyy’s dad and I became really close. He’d call me just to shoot the bull and talk about things not pertaining to basketball. He trusted me. He’d ask me for my opinion on things, such as what AAU team they should play for, what they should do, etc. (I never gave my opinion on the AAU stuff because I’m close to people at each program they were considering).
In July, Skyy’s father called me while I was on vacation and told me that they committed to Kentucky on the Zoom call. He told me not to tell anyone, so I respected his wishes. That’s why I never brought it to the board. Nobody else knew unless I told them. He said that the UK staff was elated when he committed on the spot. Sources on Kentucky’s side also said this was the case. Calipari was even asking Clark players that he would prefer to play with at UK.
On August 5th, Skyy’s father called me to tell me that they’d be making the commitment public “very, very soon” and was telling me in advance so I could get a story ready. They wanted me to help break it. That’s when I came to HOB and said “102%” or whatever I said. Later that night, Skyy released a top schools list. A week or two later, they told me that they wanted to “do it the right way” and get his school involved.
I went and saw Skyy play on August 19th and his father told me “we’re still locked in with UK” as he pulled out a UK keychain to show me. “We just don’t know what class we’re going to be in yet.”
The top schools list went from 7 to 8 to 10 to 4 (which was supposed to be 3, and those 4 flip-flopped up until the last minute) within a span of a couple of weeks.
This is where my eyebrows started to raise. Multiple AAU teams said that Clark was going to play for them, there was talk of another HS move, there was talk of moving to another state at one point. Were they just indecisive and got cold feet a lot?
With those things considered, UNC made sense because they were the last thing on the Clark’s mind at that point.
Around this time, the talk started coming out that Rod Hampton (RJ Hampton’s dad) had become good friends with Kenny.
His dad always seemed like he wanted Kentucky, but as things moved on, some of the Clark circle fell in love with UNC’s pitch. I had heard that Roy Williams was calling him personally a couple of times per week while Cal called him once every few weeks. Williams seemed to be out-working Cal in this one. Now, that may have been purposefully done by Cal, because some people told me along the way that some of Cal’s people were telling him to skip on Clark due to the games being played. (Ultimately, Cal made the call and turned up the heat and decided to stay true to Skyy as his man.)
Shortly after, there was some buzz that Clark told UNC he was coming to Chapel Hill. This is when I changed my FutureCast from UK to UNC. How many times has Kentucky missed out on players who played games with listed, had rumors surrounding multiple schools, been a “lock” then cooled off? I played the odds here.
His dad still told me it was Kentucky, but I didn’t want to get Kentucky’s fan’s hopes up. David also said that Kenny told him to change his pick to UNC during this time. This recruitment had things change with the wind some times, so I played it safe.
9/20 Skyy’s father called me and was upset that I changed my pick from UK to UNC and suggested that I change it back. I kept it the same for awhile. He called me two days later and told me to change it to UK and that he didn’t know where the UNC stuff was coming from. He said they were going to drop a top two list and UNC wasn’t going to be on it. I believe the UNC commitment rumor had pissed them off.
9/24 Talked with a source close to the Kentucky program who felt confident about their position with Clark. They believed that the Clark family was going to try to throw everyone off and pick UK in the end, coming in 2022.
After talking with a couple of sources on the situation, they believed that Clark originally threw around the idea of 2021 in order to get the Kentucky offer. I was told that Kentucky would still take him in 2021, but believed it would be best if he stayed 2022. They left both on the table. We most likely won’t know that until after Peach Jam next summer.
As we got closer to a decision, Memphis seemed to leap frog UNC for second in this race. They were confident that they could pull it off, but ended up falling short.
So, with that being said, that’s why I went from “lock” to “UNC” to “cloudy” back to Kentucky for Skyy Clark throughout this recruiting process. Skyy was a silent commit for awhile before ultimately ending up a Wildcat in the end.
Later on, in February, I had dinner with the Clark family while they were in town. They said that they were going to commit on the spot when they got an offer. Throughout the next few months, his father would text me saying things about playing in Lexington, saying they were locking in with Kentucky ASAP, Calipari gifs, etc.
You have to remember, throughout this, Skyy’s dad and I became really close. He’d call me just to shoot the bull and talk about things not pertaining to basketball. He trusted me. He’d ask me for my opinion on things, such as what AAU team they should play for, what they should do, etc. (I never gave my opinion on the AAU stuff because I’m close to people at each program they were considering).
In July, Skyy’s father called me while I was on vacation and told me that they committed to Kentucky on the Zoom call. He told me not to tell anyone, so I respected his wishes. That’s why I never brought it to the board. Nobody else knew unless I told them. He said that the UK staff was elated when he committed on the spot. Sources on Kentucky’s side also said this was the case. Calipari was even asking Clark players that he would prefer to play with at UK.
On August 5th, Skyy’s father called me to tell me that they’d be making the commitment public “very, very soon” and was telling me in advance so I could get a story ready. They wanted me to help break it. That’s when I came to HOB and said “102%” or whatever I said. Later that night, Skyy released a top schools list. A week or two later, they told me that they wanted to “do it the right way” and get his school involved.
I went and saw Skyy play on August 19th and his father told me “we’re still locked in with UK” as he pulled out a UK keychain to show me. “We just don’t know what class we’re going to be in yet.”
The top schools list went from 7 to 8 to 10 to 4 (which was supposed to be 3, and those 4 flip-flopped up until the last minute) within a span of a couple of weeks.
This is where my eyebrows started to raise. Multiple AAU teams said that Clark was going to play for them, there was talk of another HS move, there was talk of moving to another state at one point. Were they just indecisive and got cold feet a lot?
With those things considered, UNC made sense because they were the last thing on the Clark’s mind at that point.
Around this time, the talk started coming out that Rod Hampton (RJ Hampton’s dad) had become good friends with Kenny.
His dad always seemed like he wanted Kentucky, but as things moved on, some of the Clark circle fell in love with UNC’s pitch. I had heard that Roy Williams was calling him personally a couple of times per week while Cal called him once every few weeks. Williams seemed to be out-working Cal in this one. Now, that may have been purposefully done by Cal, because some people told me along the way that some of Cal’s people were telling him to skip on Clark due to the games being played. (Ultimately, Cal made the call and turned up the heat and decided to stay true to Skyy as his man.)
Shortly after, there was some buzz that Clark told UNC he was coming to Chapel Hill. This is when I changed my FutureCast from UK to UNC. How many times has Kentucky missed out on players who played games with listed, had rumors surrounding multiple schools, been a “lock” then cooled off? I played the odds here.
His dad still told me it was Kentucky, but I didn’t want to get Kentucky’s fan’s hopes up. David also said that Kenny told him to change his pick to UNC during this time. This recruitment had things change with the wind some times, so I played it safe.
9/20 Skyy’s father called me and was upset that I changed my pick from UK to UNC and suggested that I change it back. I kept it the same for awhile. He called me two days later and told me to change it to UK and that he didn’t know where the UNC stuff was coming from. He said they were going to drop a top two list and UNC wasn’t going to be on it. I believe the UNC commitment rumor had pissed them off.
9/24 Talked with a source close to the Kentucky program who felt confident about their position with Clark. They believed that the Clark family was going to try to throw everyone off and pick UK in the end, coming in 2022.
After talking with a couple of sources on the situation, they believed that Clark originally threw around the idea of 2021 in order to get the Kentucky offer. I was told that Kentucky would still take him in 2021, but believed it would be best if he stayed 2022. They left both on the table. We most likely won’t know that until after Peach Jam next summer.
As we got closer to a decision, Memphis seemed to leap frog UNC for second in this race. They were confident that they could pull it off, but ended up falling short.
So, with that being said, that’s why I went from “lock” to “UNC” to “cloudy” back to Kentucky for Skyy Clark throughout this recruiting process. Skyy was a silent commit for awhile before ultimately ending up a Wildcat in the end.
