Kentucky pushes to recruit both 'Stevie Wonders' and underrated gems to Lexington

Walk into a recruiting event during any given live period and you may find Kentucky assistant coach Jason Hart alone on the baseline, watching a game with zero bonafide blue-chippers. Maybe it’s an age group or two down, sometimes in the losers’ bracket or in the late game set when most are scheduling their dinner plans. They’re the games only the real recruiting sickos attend — plus immediate family members complaining about inflation on weekend session ticket prices.

Interestingly enough, that’s Coach Hart’s comfort zone. It’s where he’s found his most prized recruiting gems ahead of the competition, building relationships with families before kids become name-brand talents pursued by everyone.

His personal favorite? You can go back nearly a decade during his time at USC out in his neck of the woods as a native of Los Angeles. De’Anthony Melton was a recruit ranked no higher than No. 120 by Scout among the major services, as low as an unranked three-star by 247Sports, barely inside the top 50 at his position and No. 22 overall in California. Hart was competing with the likes of Rice and San Diego, able to secure his commitment months ahead of the early signing period back in Sept. 2015 before the 6-4 guard emerged as a two-way star for the Trojans.

Melton is now entering his seventh season in the NBA pushing $50 million in career earnings — quite the feather in Hart’s cap as a talent evaluator. He’s looking for similar success stories in Lexington.

“When I was at USC, I found a kid named De’Anthony Melton, who is a longtime NBA player now. He played center in high school,” the Kentucky assistant told KSR on the Sources Say Podcast. “Everybody’s going to gravitate to the elite, but at some point, there are pros everywhere, right? You’ve got to make sure you go to that 16U or even 15U game and see them early because it’s all about relationship building. Sometimes you may see me at those games, right? I mean, who’s in there? It’s not even anybody by name, but I see.”

That’s similar to the path he took as a player, going from under-the-radar recruit to Syracuse’s all-time leader in steals and second in assists, followed by a ten-year career in the NBA.

“I’m looking for myself, you know? I wasn’t a late bloomer, but I wasn’t one that was ranked super high,” Hart added. “That’s where the pros are at. Nine times out of ten, the pros are the people who aren’t ranked in the top 20. The ones who last in the NBA are not the ones who got all the publicity as a 9th or 10th grader. It’s just the facts.”

That’s not to say his job is to find diamonds in the rough — he is at Kentucky, after all. When you’re at a blue blood program, your talent pool is boundless, expected to swing for the fences on high school’s heavy hitters.

Fortunately, that’s what he has Stevie Wonder for.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Let’s go back a couple of months to a separate conversation with fellow assistant Cody Fueger — the one and only Mr. Boom. He joined KSR’s Sources Say Podcast earlier this summer and name-dropped both Hart and the 25-time Grammy Award winner in the same sentence. When asked about the program’s recruiting philosophy under Mark Pope, Fueger said the Wildcats were looking for championship-focused pieces who understand what it means to wear Kentucky across their chests, along with a few ‘Stevie Wonders’ — those things one and the same, if possible.

“The best part is we’re able to see these guys — I’ve been out every weekend for a long time now. We spend a lot of time watching film, so we know who the — as J-Hart always says — the ‘Stevie Wonders’ are. We know the guys that everybody in the gym knows how good they are, right? The ‘Stevie Wonders,'” Fueger said at the time. “We spend a lot of time getting to know and want to get to know these guys as people, what type of teammate they are, all of that stuff is super important for us. Guys that want to win a championship.”

Pope was a prime example of what that model looks like as a player.

“That was Pope’s approach, right? He was coming off the bench and won a national championship, was Pac-10 Freshman of the Year — a monster basketball player, he was drafted,” Fueger added. “He’s got a real thing to sell here at Kentucky with what he lived through, what he did, and how hard he worked to win a national championship. We’re looking for guys that have that inside them, what Coach Pope did and what he believes in. That’s something we feel like we can get. We can get the right guys here that hopefully are some Stevie Wonders.”

Care to explain, Coach Hart? He was happy to talk about his dear friend Stevie and why he’s so crucial in Kentucky’s recruiting efforts moving forward.

In short, those players are the ones everyone can see will make it — even Stevie Wonder. You can just sense elite talent when it’s in the gym.

“So a ‘Stevie Wonder’ is when I go into the gym, me and Stevie walk in. Obviously, he can’t see, he can just hear,” Hart said. “That’s the level of talent that you need, because Stevie Wonder can see it. I call elite level talent ‘Stevie Wonder.’ You don’t need to see it, you can just hear it. That’s my slogan for Stevie Wonder.”

We know Hart’s favorite evaluation win over the years, but what about his biggest addition among Stevie Wonders? That came as the head coach of the NBA G-League Ignite, a former consensus five-star guard out of Georgia.

He stole him away from the likes of Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Louisville, Georgia, Florida State and Georgia Tech, among other high-majors. Then he became a top-three draft selection in 2023.

“The best player I’ve ever coached was Scoot Henderson,” Hart told KSR. “We recruited him out of Atlanta at 17 years old and I’ve never seen nothing like that before. That was on and off the court. The discipline he had and obviously his ability, Scoot Henderson was the best player that I’ve ever coached.”

Until he finds his next Stevie Wonder in Lexington.