Five-Star PG Reese Alston Picks LSU Over Kentucky: Why the Second Miss in Two Days Puts It All on Diggs

Make it two misses in two days. Reese Alston, the five-star point guard from Second Baptist in the Houston area, announced live on CBS Sports HQ Thursday that he is headed to LSU, choosing Will Wade's Tigers over Kentucky, Louisville, Tennessee and Wichita State (via CBS Sports, On3). He's the son of former NBA guard Rafer "Skip 2 My Lou" Alston.

Alston ranks as the No. 3 point guard and the No. 9 overall prospect in the 2027 class on Rivals and No. 9 on 247Sports (ESPN has him No. 13). LSU got him on campus first, for an early-September visit built around the LSU-Clemson football game, and he went on to see Kentucky and Tennessee after that. The Tigers had been on him for months; Wade watched him several times at a summer Puma event, where On3 had him averaging 20 points a game (via On3). He joins four-star guard King Gibson in a class that now ranks among the top two in the country (No. 2 per CBS Sports; On3 has it No. 1 on Rivals).

Our take: what it means for UK's board

This one stings less than Uvwo, and that's not spin. Since mid-October the reporting on Alston had him leaning LSU or Louisville, with Kentucky on the outside even after his trip to Lexington (via Yahoo Sports, UK Wildcats Wire). Kentucky made his list and got the visit. It never looked like the favorite.

Still, Big Blue Nation knows what two straight five-star misses look like. Uvwo went to Providence on Wednesday, Alston to LSU on Thursday, and Kentucky's 2027 class still has one commitment: wing Ryan Hampton. The questions about Mark Pope's high school recruiting are not going away this week.

The guard spot is the one place this miss can be absorbed. Yahoo Sports points out that Zoom Diallo, Alex Wilkins and Mason Williams all have eligibility left in Kentucky's backcourt, so Pope does not need a 2027 point guard the way he needed a rim protector.

That puts the weight on the next two calls. Five-star shooting guard Adan Diggs, the No. 5 overall recruit in the Rivals Industry Ranking, is down to Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky and USC and plans to pick in mid-November after an official visit to UK (via On3). At center, 7-foot-5 Cherif Millogo has an On3 prediction logged for Kentucky, with BYU still in the mix (via Yahoo Sports).

Bottom line: losing Alston to an SEC rival that is now stacking guards is a real loss, but the class will be judged on Diggs and Millogo. Land both and this week turns into a footnote.

Sources: CBS Sports · theScore · On3 (Glen West) · Louisiana Sports (Hunt Palmer) · Yahoo Sports · UK Wildcats Wire · On3 (Diggs) · Yahoo Sports (Millogo)