Kentucky lands point guard Immanuel Quickley; KU still pursuing Devon Dotson

Blue-chip point guard Immanuel Quickley will be playing college basketball at Kentucky.

Quickley, a 6-foot-4 senior from John Carroll High School in Bel Air, Md., who is ranked No. 10 in the recruiting Class of 2018 by Rivals.com, on Friday chose John Calipari’s Wildcats over Kansas and Miami.

Quickley made the announcement on his mother’s birthday in a live stream from his high school gym.

While announcing his choice of Kentucky, Quickley removed a sports coat then unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a blue Kentucky jersey with the number 3.

Quickley made an official visit to Kansas on Sept. 1-3 and one to Kentucky last weekend. He attended last year’s Late Night in the Phog as part of an unofficial visit to KU. His official visit to Miami was postponed because of Hurricane Irma and was never rescheduled.

Kentucky had long been considered the heavy favorite to land Quickley, who played for Calipari last summer on the United States’ FIBA Under-19 World Cup team. Quikcley averaged 23.7 points and 7.2 assists per game his junior season at John Carroll and averaged 19.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists over 14 games this past summer for Team BBC on the Adidas Gauntlet circuit.

“They (Wildcats) offered a lot earlier than a lot of other people and by doing that I felt like they really cared about me from an early stage and they only offer pros really, so for them to think I was good enough to be a professional basketball player was really special,” Quickley told Evan Daniels of Scout.com.

“I think that was the biggest factor,” Quickley added of Calipari-coached guards advancing to the NBA. “You want to play somewhere where players like yourself have been successful and to see players like John Wall, Derrick Rose, and recently De’Aaron Fox, just to see those guys be successful in the same situation is really cool.”

As far as the point guard position goes, KU is hoping to land Devon Dotson, a 6-1 senior from Providence Day High School in Charlotte, N.C. Dotson, the No. 17 ranked player in the recruiting Class of 2018 according to Rivals.com, has officially visited Kansas, Florida and Arizona. The Kentucky Wildcats have been eliminated.

There is still a chance Dotson could visit Maryland, but most analysts believe it’s a KU-Florida battle.

KU has received an oral commitment from No. 25-ranked Silvio De Sousa, a 6-9, 220-pound senior forward from IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. The Jayhawks on Sunday hope to beat out North Carolina State, Xavier and Oklahoma State for David McCormack, a 6-10, 260-pound senior from Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va. He has visited N.C. State and Xavier and made an unofficial to KU. His official visit to KU is set for the Sept. 30 Late Night in the Phog. Zagsblog.com on Friday indicated the other two schools on his list, UCLA and Duke, were no longer factors.

This story was originally published September 22, 2017 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Kentucky lands point guard Immanuel Quickley; KU still pursuing Devon Dotson."