The Wildcats Edge Out the Ducks for a Top Shooting Guard

Jamal Murray has committed to play for the Kentucky Wildcats.

It was announced today at 6:00 p.m. EST that he decided to head to Lexington. This shouldn't come as a big surprise, seeing how the University of Kentucky has been an NBA factory for the last four or five years, which is a hard selling point to fight against as most of the top prospects have aspirations to make it to the NBA as soon as they can, which is something head coach John Calipari has had no difficulty doing.

However, it should come as a small kicker seeing that Oregon was projected by 75% to receive the commitment from Murray, with Kentucky only holding a 25% prediction from 247 Sports Crystal Ball.

Murray, coming from the Athlete Institute Basketball Academy in Toronto, is a composite 4 star recruit (#30 overall player and the #7 shooting guard). He has decided to reclassify to the class of 2015, which makes him eligible to play this upcoming basketball season. He held offers from other schools such as Ohio State, Virginia, and Michigan State, while receiving a lot of interest from other power programs such as Duke, Louisville, and Syracuse.

While this is a bummer to miss out on a recruit who many thought would be a Duck, Oregon still has a very talented class coming in with Kendall Small, Trevor Manuel, Tyler Dorsey, and Chris Boucher. All for of those guys are composite four star recruits, so there is still a lot to be excited for in this upcoming season.