Spanning the end of John Calipari’s coaching tenure in Lexington and continuing into the Mark Pope coaching era, UK has returned to being the college basketball destination for talented natives of the commonwealth.
And the Wildcats are making an early effort to make sure this trend continues with the 2026 recruiting group.
One of the standout prospects to know from the group of eight recruits that Kentucky has offered in the 2026 class is Taylen Kinney , a 6-foot-1, 174-pound point guard.
A former standout at Newport High School in Northern Kentucky, Kinney led the Wildcats to appearances in the Sweet 16 state tournament in both 2023 and 2024.
Now, like many other talented recruits, Kinney has left home in pursuit of individual improvement.
Kinney is now at the Atlanta-based Overtime Elite (OTE) program, a 24-7 basketball destination that puts a priority on player development.
“It’s state of the art. You aren’t finding this anywhere else. Like, no high school. No prep school. Nowhere else,” Kinney told the Herald-Leader on Tuesday following OTE’s annual fall combine, which took place in front of about 90 college basketball coaches and NBA scouts, along with media members. “… Being able to compete and push myself every day in practice. I want to be pushed. I don’t want to have a bad day (in) practice, slacking, and then still be able to win and everything. If I’m slacking here, I’ll get killed.”
Before he left Kentucky, Kinney — who is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as a four-star recruit and the No. 27 overall prospect in the 2026 class — was considered one of the state’s best young players. Last season as a sophomore, Kinney was an all-state performer who averaged more than 17 points per game while shooting nearly 50% from the field and better than 41% on 3-pointers.
A hamstring injury limited what Kinney was able to do in his second state tournament trip with Newport, but the talented floor general took away plenty from his three seasons of Kentucky high school hoops. (Kinney also played varsity for Newport as an eighth grader).
“Becoming a leader,” Kinney said. “Being an inner-city school, not a lot of students there, and then turning the whole program and school around.”
Class of 2026 college basketball recruit Taylen Kinney takes on a defender during the Overtime Elite Fall Combine at the OTE Arena in Atlanta on Tuesday. Kinney previously played at Newport High School in Kentucky. Overtime Elite
Taylen Kinney is emerging as a top class of 2026 college basketball recruit
In recent months, and even prior to his OTE move, Kinney’s basketball recruitment exploded.
During a summer playing on the 16-and-under Adidas grassroots circuit — Kinney averaged 26.8 points scored or created by assists per game, per Synergy Sports — Kinney added scholarship offers from the likes of Arkansas, Auburn, Kansas, Louisville, Texas and Villanova, among other schools.
Kentucky coaches also watched Kinney play on the Adidas circuit this summer, and UK offered Kinney a scholarship in August while he was on an unofficial visit to the school.
“Everybody in Kentucky wants that Kentucky offer,” the 16-year-old Kinney said. “… I think it’s a great school. Great fan base. I want to give (Pope) a year to see what they can do. They’ve got two Kentucky kids (Johnson and Moreno) so far, I want to see what they can do with them next year.”
That unofficial visit to UK included a thorough film session with Pope and other UK coaches.
“It was just me and the whole coaching staff, all day. It was good vibes,” Kinney said. “We watched film. They had film of all my plays: Offense, defense, rebounding, assists. All that.”
“They were showing my strengths and weaknesses. They were keeping it real with me,” Kinney also recalled from that film session. “I appreciate that a lot. I want everybody to keep it real with me.”
Undoubtedly, some of the film that was reviewed came from Newport’s All “A” Classic semifinal win over Lyon County, the eventual Sweet 16 state champions who were led by a trio of Division I players, including UK newcomer and Mr. Kentucky Basketball Travis Perry.
Kinney had 14 points and five rebounds in that win over Lyon County, which was one of only three defeats the state champion Lyons suffered last season.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be playing,” Kinney said, noting the he played through a left ankle injury during the All “A” Classic.
Kinney was previously expected to be back on the UK campus next month for Big Blue Madness on Oct. 11. But, because of overlap with a USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team minicamp in Colorado that Kinney has also been invited to, he says that it’s “up in the air” whether or not he will be at Rupp Arena for the annual kickoff event for the Kentucky basketball season.
Class of 2026 recruit Taylen Kinney is ranked as a four-star prospect by the 247Sports Composite. Overtime Elite
Taylen Kinney looks to continue point guard development at OTE
Kinney won’t have to look far to find himself a quality backcourt mentor in his new environment at OTE.
Kinney will be on the same OTE team, RWE, as Johnson, the aforementioned five-star recruit who previously starred at Woodford County High School in Versailles and Link Academy in Missouri.
Johnson is one of two Kentucky commits in the 2025 recruiting class, along with Moreno.
Both Kinney and Johnson will be coached on the RWE team by Corey Frazier, who also coached former UK recruits Somto Cyril and Karter Knox last season at OTE.
“There’s so much upside,” Frazier said of Kinney. “His passing ability, his ability to play in the halfcourt. What I’m going to have to do is (help him) find his voice more, but also teach him how to run a team while still being effective and scoring the basketball.”
Kinney’s recruitment, obviously, still has a long way to go.
But what does the former Kentucky high school star envision for himself at the college level?
“The ball in my hands more, me just being a true point guard,” Kinney said, adding that he’s hoping to learn how to play different positions while at OTE. “Playing out of ball screens. Looking for my teammates, getting my teammates involved.”
Class of 2026 recruit Taylen Kinney played in each of the last two Sweet 16 state tournaments while at Newport High School. Kinney now plays prep basketball at the Atlanta-based Overtime Elite program. James Weber/USA TODAY NETWORK
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