On3's Recruiting Prediction Machine has one school with commanding lead for 2023 5-star Mackenzie Mgbako

On3 Consensus No. 5 in 2023, Mackenzie Mgbako will announce his college decision at 9:00 PM EST on Friday. On3’s Joe Tipton reported that the Gladstone (NJ) Gill St. Bernard forward’s final group is Duke, Kentucky, Ohio State, and Memphis.

One program has taken a big lead with On3’s Recruiting Prediction Machine (RPM). The RPM has Duke with a 93.2-percent chance of landing Mgbako. Following Duke, Memphis, Kentucky, and Ohio State each carry a 1.8-percent opportunity to land the five-star.

On3’s engineering group teamed with Spiny.ai to create RPM, the industry’s first algorithm and machine learning-based product to predict where athletes will attend college. It factors in machine learning, expert prediction, social sentiment, visits, and historical trends. However, expert predictions are still a big piece of the RPM equation.

On3 has two predictions set in the system. I put my Crystal Ball for Duke on April 6 with a 75-percent confidence rate. Kentucky Sports Radio/On3’s Jack Pilgrim set his Crystal Ball for Duke on April 7 with an 80-percent confidence rate.

What Mgbako said

“(Jon Scheyer) is a likable coach,” Mgbako told On3’s Joe Tipton. “Like when you meet him and get recruited by him, you see it first hand. He is a coach you want to be recruited by. He has that kind of feeling to him that makes you want to go to his team.”
“I met Caleb (Foster) over at the Duke visit. Coach Scheyer told me a little bit about who he’d be recruiting and said that would be the starting point guard.”

Why Duke

This recruitment was a quick one. The Duke offer was a big one for Mgbako. When he received it, he spoke of the next-level success of the Zion Williamson, Cam Reddish team. The fact Jon Scheyer personally recruited him was big for Mgbako. Scheyer laid out an exact plan for how they would use Mgbako and who they would recruit along with him. When the forward was in Durham, Scheyer made sure to have other targets and/or commits there to form bonds.

While Mgbako’s recruitment blew up, just as you would expect of the On3 Consensus No. 5 prospect, Duke’s lead was never really in jeopardy.

What is Duke getting

It is all about the jump shot. The release is consistent, high, and soft. Mackenzie Mgbako steps into it confidently off the catch, and his balance is right on. Then you see the positional size at 6-foot-8/6-foot-9, and you see the attraction. Past the jump shot, Mgbako attacks closeouts in a straight line. His handle is average, his hips seem a little stiff, and he is a slightly above average athlete. Despite each of these being a concern moving forward, the shooting and the confidence are very real traits here, and he rebounds his area. Mgbako has consistently performed at a high level in big settings.