A Tuesday meeting with Rick Pitino that some recruiting experts believed was little more than a shot in the dark has turned into an official U of L visit for five-star class of 2016 forward T.J. Leaf.
Leaf, the No. 15 overall player in the class according to Rivals.com, will visit Louisville on the weekend of Oct. 2, the same weekend four-star Texas guard Andrew Jones will be in town. Both prospects will attend the Red-White scrimmage at the KFC Yum Center on Oct. 3.
A 6'9 post scorer who had been committed to Arizona until August, Leaf and his family met with Pitino and Cardinal assistant Kenny Johnson for about an hour and-a-half on Tuesday, and the big man told Scout.com that it went "so great." Although Leaf named a list of California, Gonzaga, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, San Diego State, Texas and UCLA last month, it would appear as though Tuesday's meeting has made up a lot of ground for U of L.
These are a big couple of weeks for Louisville basketball recruiting, as five-star guard De'Aaron Fox will take an official visit to campus this weekend. Per his request, he will be joined by Cardinal commit V.J. King, who will be making an unofficial visit.
Rick Pitino has said numerous times this offseason that he plans on taking no more than three players from the class of 2016. If that class could consist of King and some combination of Fox, Leaf or Jones (or even just one of those three), it would be an enormous boost for a 2016-17 Cardinal squad that doesn't figure to lose a lot from this year's team, but which will immediate production from the players who do choose to sign with U of L.
