There are a lot of things that have changed over the last ten years with the Duke and Kentucky basketball programs, but its pursuit of a championship has remained the same.
While the days of Mike Krzyzewskiand John Calipari roaming the sidelines and throwing down on the recruiting circuit for the best high school players in the country are gone, a new generation of coaches have emerged to ensuring the rivalry remains strong.
While the goal of a title has remained the same with Jon Scheyer and Mark Pope running things at their respective schools, each head coach has taken a different philosophy to reach the mountain top.
Scheyer remains very active in the high school scene, landing elite players like Cooper Flagg and Cameron Boozer while Pope has brought a veteran presence to Lexington through the transfer portal. The NIL budgets of each team are some of the biggest in the sport.
Yet, with the new chapter in the rivalry, there hasn’t been an old school recruiting battle between the programs within the last five years.
However, that has changed because of the talents of one elite guard from New Jersey.
Both Duke and Kentucky are breaking out the full court press for 5-star target Deron Rippey Jr., taking multiple in-home visits with the future star and wanting to get him back on campus for official visits.
Rippey has been high on many schools’ recruiting boards quite some time and he’s starting to dwindle his list down to a select number of schools, beginning to visit programs at the end of August. He recently cut Indiana and Kansas from his long list of suitors.
Rippey is currently ranked as the No. 11 player in the Class of 2026, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, and the top point guard in his class.
There is no timetable for a possible decision but the expectation is that Deron Rippey will have a long process and a decision might not arrive until the late winter or early spring.