Tobacco Road rivals Duke, North Carolina already have pledges from four of the top 11 prospects.
247Sports
After spending the last six months crisscrossing the country to watch the nation's top players compete with their high school and grassroots teams, the 247Sports rankings for the class of 2023 have been updated and much has changed during that time.
In fact, the change begins at the very top where 6-foot-9 power forward
GG Jackson has overtaken combo guard
Dajuan Wagner Jr. as the top ranked senior-to-be.
Jackson has a fight on his hands if he wants to hold onto that No. 1 spot and the updated 2023 has seen some major change all the way through.
Jackson takes over the top spot for now
Recent North Carolina commit GG Jackson is the newly minted No. 1 player in his class, but this isn't a situation where he's running away and hiding from the rest of his class.
A 6-foot-9 power forward from
Ridge View (Columbia, S.C.), Jackson has size, athleticism and versatility working in his favor. He can run the floor, he plays above the rim, he rebounds, he has the ability to play facing the basket and he can be an effective shot blocker on the defensive end. However, if he's going to retain the top spot, he's going to have to take all of those tools and be more consistently dominant as he finds the right blend between playing on the block and playing on the perimeter
UPDATED 2023 RANKINGS: See the complete list hereAs the only player in the class to ever hold the No. 1 spot before being overtaken by Jackson in this cycle, DJ Wagner is certainly going to be motivated. There were some real ups and downs during his junior season at
Camden (N.J.) and if an update had been completed in February or March, Wagner may have even been a few spots lower than No. 2. During play in Nike's EYBL, though, Wagner has really turned things back up and if he continues his dominant scoring, he just might be able to wrestle the top spot back from Jackson. On the recruiting front, it had long been thought that he would end up at Kentucky but now that Kenny Payne is the head coach at Louisville and Wagner's grandfather Milt has been added to the staff, the Cardinals are looking like the favorite.
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Xavier Booker, in action here last December, has seen his stock rise in recent months after helping Indianapolis Cathedral win a state title in March.
Photo: Tyler Hart
