John Calipari made his first 2025 scholarship offer to shooting guard Darryn Peterson, who plays at Woodford County Sunday night. (Vicky Graff Photo)
The first player in the 2025 recruiting class to get a scholarship offer from Kentucky was 6-6 shooting guard Darryn Peterson and he will be in Versailles Sunday as part of the Court XIV Classic honoring the legacy of Alvis Johnson.
Peterson plays for Huntington (W.V.) Prep and will face Link Academy (Mo.) and Jasper Johnson, a former Woodford County standout and top 10 player in the 2025 class who also has a Kentucky scholarship offer. They will play at 6 p.m. at Woodford County High School after host Woodford plays Tates Creek at 3:30.
Peterson is a consensus five-star recruit who cut his potential college list to Arkansas, Baylor, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio State recently but also left open the possibility of playing professionally instead. He plans to make official visits to Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Ohio State before deciding about his future.
Peterson has already made an unofficial visit to Kentucky and also talks with Johnson about future plans.
Huntington Prep coach Arkell Bruce says his star guard can “score all over the court” in a variety of ways.
“He knows how to play and make the right play almost too much at times. He’s a highly competitive kid who embraces these kinds of matchups,” Bruce said. “He is a jack of all trades on the court. He’s going to be a master of shooting. His stroke is really nice. It’s only a matter of time before his 3-point percentage is in the high 40’s. But he can also play point guard and is our primary ball handler.”
Bruce continues to push Peterson to play as “hard as he possibly can” and put the team on his back most games.
Peterson, a consensus top five player in the 2025 recruiting class, has not totally ruled out the possibility of reclassifying to the 2024 class — one reason he’s already setting up official visits.
Peterson made national headlines recently when he became the first high school athlete to sign a Name, Image and Likeness deal with Adidas. He also signed a multi-year deal with Fanatics Trading Cards, which made him the youngest athlete to have a deal with a trading card company.
Since Kansas is an Adidas school and Kentucky is a Nike school, that might seem to favor Kansas but in today’s NIL world that does not seem to matter.
“He just released his top eight (schools),” Bruce said. “Kentucky is one of the teams on the list. Him and his family will make the right decision for him at the end of day. But I know they are fond of Kentucky.”
Some of Huntington Prep’s other top players are 6-3 junior point guard Micah Tucker, 6-7 junior Dillon Tingler and 6-8 junior Braydon Hawthorne.
“Tucker is a hard-nosed elite defender and a really good playmaker. He takes matchups like this one very seriously,” Bruce said. “Tingler is an Eastern Michigan commit and a big-time shooter. Hawthorne is a top 30 player in the 2025 class and is really long but can also shoot it.”
