Several top basketball recruits – including Kevin Knox, Mohamed Bamba – remain undecided

The calendar has turned to the month of May, and four five-star basketball recruits from the class of 2017 remain undecided on where they’ll play in college.

That’s a larger number of uncommitted prospects than in recent years, but it’s becoming more and more common for top high school stars to wait out the process.

And recent history says some of these up-in-the-air recruitments might remain that way for a few more weeks.

The regular signing period for Division I basketball recruits started April 12 and runs through May 17, but that’s not an actual deadline for players to sign. Many top recruits these days forego the more binding national letter of intent and simply sign scholarship papers with the school of their choice, and those documents can be filled out any time up until the start of the school year.

That means the five-star players left uncommitted in this 2017 class — Mohamed Bamba, Kevin Knox, Trevon Duval and Brian Bowen — are basically working on their own clock. They know the schools recruiting them will be glad to take them whenever they’re ready to commit, so there’s really no rush to do so.

Bowen — a 6-foot-7 wing from Saginaw, Mich., who has played his last two seasons at La Lumiere (Ind.) — was hanging out at the Nike league session in Indianapolis over the weekend, supporting some of his former teammates.

He has narrowed his list of schools to Arizona, Creighton, Michigan State, N.C. State and Texas and not too long ago promised a commitment in the month of April. He said on April 28 he’s not sure when that announcement will come.

“I always looked at the guys like Jarrett Allen, those guys, and I was like, ‘Why are they taking so long? I will never be that guy.’ And now I’m that guy. It’s crazy,” Bowen said.

Allen — a one-time Kentucky recruiting target — has waited longer than any high school senior in recent years. His commitment to Texas did not become public until June 3 of last year, and the Longhorns didn’t officially confirm it until the next day.

Five-star center Marques Bolden went all the way until May 19 of last year, when he picked Duke. Jaylen Brown (May 4, 2015), Andrew Wiggins (May 14, 2013), Amile Jefferson (May 15, 2012), Caleb Swanigan (May 19, 2015) and Devonta Pollard (June 1, 2012) are other five-star prospects who have stretched out their recruitments in recent years.

Former Kentucky guard Jamal Murray didn’t commit to the Wildcats until June 24 after his final year of high school, though he also moved up a class so he could get to college earlier.

“It’s truly a long process,” Bowen said Friday night. “You don’t want to rush it. You have to take your time. There are guys who are maybe staying in school, maybe going to the NBA. There are coaches getting fired. There are so many factors.

“I’m in a position now where I really understand.”

Bamba, Knox and Duval — all top-10 recruits in the Scout.com rankings — are in the same position.

Bamba, the No. 2 overall recruit in the country and a 7-footer from Harlem, N.Y. — has narrowed his list to Duke, Kentucky Michigan and Texas, but he has not divulged much about his recruitment in recent weeks.

A college decision is not considered imminent.

“He’s clearly taking his time, and he’s going about this process in a different way,” said Scout.com’s Evan Daniels. “I don’t think he’s in any kind of hurry to knock this thing out.”

Kentucky has been seen as a favorite for Bamba in recent months.

Some analysts who were previously on the fence over Bamba’s destination, including 247Sports’ Andrew Slater, are now predicting Texas.

Knox is planning to announce a college decision Saturday evening on Twitter according to his coach and a tweet from Knox.

Kentucky is not considered a favorite for Knox, a 6-9 small forward from Tampa, Fla., who is also listing Duke, Florida State, North Carolina, and, most recently, Missouri.

Duval — by some accounts, the No. 1 point guard in the 2017 class — is still considering several schools, but Duke remains the most likely choice.

Cameron Reddish is one of the top five prospects in the next group of recruits — the class of 2018 — and he also played on the same high school team as Bamba. The two friends and teammates visited Kentucky together last fall.

Reddish said last weekend that he isn’t surprised Bamba remains uncommitted, adding that the 7-footer doesn’t talk much about his recruitment.

Asked if he has any idea where his friend would be going to college, Reddish claimed that he’s in the same camp as the rest of us.

“I have no clue,” he said.

This story was originally published May 6, 2017 at 8:29 AM with the headline "Several top basketball recruits – including Kevin Knox, Mohamed Bamba – remain undecided."