Big Blue Madness is back. These Kentucky basketball recruits visited for the event.

Big Blue Madness is back. And with it comes the chance for the Kentucky men’s basketball program to host several recruits in Lexington as the Wildcats hold their annual preseason kickoff event Friday night.

Things will, somewhat obviously, be different at this year’s edition of Madness, and that’s not just because of the tricked out court and LED floor that will be used inside Rupp Arena for the event.

Kentucky’s offseason coaching change from John Calipari to Mark Pope has come with a litany of changes, not the least of which was the tenor of Tuesday’s annual team media day.

But something that has remained the same despite the Calipari-to-Pope coaching transition is the standing of Big Blue Madness as a recruiting opportunity for Kentucky.

This is made clear by this year’s top visitor for Madness, four-star class of 2025 guard Acaden Lewis, who is taking the final official visit of his recruitment this week to Lexington.

As has been the case with other college programs, UK is also using Madness as an opportunity to introduce younger college basketball recruits to Kentucky, and all the spectacle that comes with being a Wildcat.

The Pope era of UK basketball will have another major moment Friday with his first Big Blue Madness. These recruits will be on hand for the event, and like everyone else, they’ll be keeping a close eye on how things go.

Acaden Lewis tops list of UK visitors for Big Blue Madness

As previously mentioned, Lewis is the visitor to know for this year’s edition of Big Blue Madness.

A 6-foot-2 guard from Washington, D.C., Lewis is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as a four-star prospect and as the No. 36 overall recruit in the 2025 class.

Lewis is a strong contender to join Kentucky’s 2025 recruiting group, which already includes five-star guard Jasper Johnson and five-star center Malachi Moreno. Lewis — who is still considering Duke, Kentucky and two-time defending national champion UConn for college — would be the first recruit landed by Pope without previous ties to the commonwealth.

Johnson is a son of Dennis Johnson (the former UK football star) and he began his high school basketball career at Woodford County in Versailles. Moreno plays at Great Crossing in Georgetown and is the preseason favorite to be named the 2025 Kentucky Mr. Basketball.

Lewis has already taken official visits to both of his other finalists. He was at UConn in September and he was at Duke earlier this month for the Blue Devils’ annual preseason kickoff event, known as Countdown to Craziness.

The left-handed Lewis is expected to commit to a college this fall. He was previously on campus at Kentucky in June on an unofficial visit, during which he picked up his UK scholarship offer.

“He’s just a great guy. Really genuine, and he’s preaching that I can come in and play right away,” Lewis told the Herald-Leader in July about Pope, UK’s new coach. “That’s something, obviously, everybody wants to hear going to the next level. But I really believed it, it seemed genuine.”

UConn has just one 2025 commit, five-star guard Darius Adams.

On Friday morning, Duke got commitments from five-star guard Cayden Boozer and five-star power forward Cameron Boozer. These prospects are the twin sons of former Duke basketball legend and NBA all-star Carlos Boozer, and the Boozer twins picked Duke over hometown Miami (Fla.).

The commitment of Cayden to Duke could cause a ripple effect that improves UK’s chances with Lewis.

Duke and Kentucky are now the only schools with multiple commitments from players ranked in the top 25 of the 247Sports Composite for the 2025 class.

Lewis emerged as a recruiting target for Pope earlier this year after putting on some dominant displays while playing for Team Durant on the Nike grassroots circuit and at the NBPA Top 100 Camp, which is considered a top evaluation setting.

On the Nike circuit, Lewis averaged 16.7 points, 6.1 assists, and 1.5 steals per game. At the NBPA Top 100 Camp, Lewis was an all-star performer who averaged more than 15 points and nearly 4 assists per game.

Class of 2026 UK recruit Anthony Thompson will be at Big Blue Madness

Update: Thompson reported a scholarship offer from Kentucky on Saturday afternoon.

An example of the way that Big Blue Madness can be used as an introduction to Kentucky for younger prospects comes via another Friday night visitor, class of 2026 small forward Anthony Thompson.

A 6-7 prospect, Thompson doesn’t yet hold a Kentucky scholarship offer. He’s ranked by the 247Sports Composite as a five-star recruit, and that service has Thompson listed as the No. 17 prospect in the 2026 class.

Thompson plays prep basketball at Western Reserve Academy near Akron, Ohio, and his offer list is impressive. The junior boasts scholarship offers from the likes of Alabama, Illinois, Louisville, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, Texas and UCLA, among other schools.

Toward the end of the Calipari era, Kentucky’s recruiting mentality shifted. Calipari began offering scholarships to prospects at an earlier stage of their basketball careers.

It appears Pope also isn’t shy about extending these early scholarship offers.

Pope and the Kentucky program have already offered nine recruits in the 2026 class. Thompson would be the 10th high school junior to hold a UK offer, should one materialize for him.

Big Blue Madness is overlapping with a USA Basketball minicamp

Normally, there would be more recruits considered likely to visit Lexington for Big Blue Madness, and Kentucky fans are certainly used to visitor lists for the event that reached double figures during the Calipari era.

But this year’s Madness event directly overlaps with a USA Basketball Junior National Team minicamp that’s taking place in Colorado.

Nine college basketball recruits with a Kentucky scholarship offer are expected to take part in the USA Basketball minicamp. Those players are guards Mikel Brown Jr. (2025), Brayden Burries (2025), Jason Crowe Jr. (2026), Taylen Kinney (2026), Brandon McCoy (2026), Jordan Smith Jr. (2026), forwards Caleb Holt (2026) and Baba Oladotun (2027) and center Chris Cenac (2025).

Johnson and Moreno — Kentucky’s two commitments in the 2025 recruiting class — are also scheduled to participate in the USA Basketball event.

The Herald-Leader will be on the ground at this USA Basketball minicamp and will be providing coverage of the Kentucky recruits in attendance.

The complete list of expected minicamp participants can be found here. Also expected to participate in the minicamp is class of 2027 power forward Griffin Starks, who plays at Newport High School in Northern Kentucky.

Newport is Kinney’s previous school. Kinney is now at the Overtime Elite program in Atlanta with Johnson.

It’s also worth noting that Kentucky, at one time, had several other recruits lined up to visit for Big Blue Madness. But, some of these players won’t be in Lexington on Friday night because they are no longer considering coming to Kentucky.

Top among this list is class of 2025 small forward Tounde Yessoufou. The five-star recruit committed to Baylor earlier this month.

Aside from Big Blue Madness, Pope has also spent time on the recruiting trail this week outside of the commonwealth. Pope reportedly visited two class of 2025 prospects — power forwards Nate Ament and Caleb Wilson — that the Wildcats are heavily pursuing.

Wilson took an official visit to UK in September.

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