Vernon Carey — now ranked by Rivals.com as the No. 1 basketball recruit in the class of 2019 — was a high school sophomore when he visited Lexington for Big Blue Madness a couple of years ago.
A 6-foot-10 power forward, Carey was already one of the best frontcourt prospects in the game. UK assistant coach Kenny Payne had some advice for Carey, at the time still just 15 years old.
“He told me to talk to Bam Adebayo,” Carey recalled Friday.
So he did.