Highly ranked Kentucky recruit has Razorbacks still in running

LITTLE ROCK It was assumed Arkansas was a finalist for 2026 5-star guard Tay Kinney given that an upcoming official visit to Fayetteville has been known for weeks.

But on Thursday, Kinney removed any doubt by releasing his Final 8 list, which includes Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Kansas, Indiana, Texas, Oregon, and Miami.

Kinney (6-2 guard, Overtime Elite, native of Newport, Ky., 247Sports national No.

12 / 5-star prospect) has already visited his home-state schools, Kentucky and Louisville, and he has official visit dates set for each of his other six finalists, including a current-weekend trip to Kansas that wrapped up today.

Kinney's Arkansas visit is set for the weekend of Sept.

26-28, and part of his itinerary while he's in Fayetteville is to attend Razorbacks basketball practice inside the performance center in addition to taking in the football Hogs' home game against Notre Dame on Saturday, Sept.

27, at Razorback Stadium.

Arkansas coach John Calipari began prioritizing Kinney as a recruit several years ago when he was coach of the blueblood Wildcats while Kinney was showing promise as an up-and-coming prospect.

Kinney took an unofficial visit to Kentucky while Calipari was still coaching there.

Fast-forward to April 2024 when Calipari left Big Blue Nation to take over at Arkansas, and it wasn't long after his move that he extended an Arkansas scholarship offer to Kinney.

Another Calipari wheelhouse recruiting trend is his success landing players from independent high school hoops factory Overtime Elite, based in Atlanta, where Kinney played as a junior and will finish up as a senior in 2025-26.

Calipari's first two Arkansas recruiting classes and subsequent rosters have included former OTE players, Karter Knox and Meleek Thomas.

His last Kentucky roster included two former OTE players, Rob Dillingham and Jordan Burks.

Multiple sources in national recruiting circles have told us the perceived leader for Kinney is Louisville with Arkansas running a competitive close second.

Pat Kelsey's revived Cardinals program is, after all, the home state school, but it's also an Adidas-sponsored program and Kinney was one of the stars on the spring-and-summer Adidas 3SSB grassroots hoops circuit.

Adidas has a track-record of pursuing long-term endorsement deals with top talent that competed on its spring-and-summer platform, and often many of those same players end up choosing an Adidas-sponsored college.

What helps Calipari and Arkansas to potentially win out in the end is the long-established relationship, but also Calipari's one-of-a-kind success helping his players realize their dreams of playing in the NBA.

His role in that endeavor is multi-layered: Player development, exposure in big-stage games, competing against other high-caliber talent in day-to-day practices let along during the season, and promoting his players on national telecasts, radio segments, and podcasts.

Calipari and his coaching staff teamed up to assure they were courtside for Kinney's Adidas 3SSB games spanning May through July.

Kinney's upcoming visit dates are: Indiana (Aug.

29-21), Oregon (Sept.

5-7), Texas (Sept.

12-14), Miami (Sept.

19-21)., and the aforementioned trip to Arkansas (Sept.

26-28).

Kinney is a high-floor-IQ lead guard with a myriad of scoring craft that works at all three levels, and he's a willing facilitator with plus court vision and other-player awareness.

Hogs Feed:.

This article has been shared from the original article on si, here is the link to the original article.