Terrence Jones
Photo by Juliann Tallino
The final holdout among MaxPreps.com's 2010 Top 100, Jones reversed field on an earlier commitment to the University of Washington to cast his lot with John Calipari's Wildcats.
The 6-foot-9, 210-pound forward hasn't commented to the media about the change in direction, but did summarize his thoughts on Twitter.
"Either way 1fan base was gonna hate me ....sooo how much wud u care," Jones tweeted. "Yeah most hated player n 2010 goes 2 me."
As a senior at Jefferson High School (Portland, Ore.), Jones poured in over 32 points per game and grabbed 13 rebounds for the Democrats to earn second team All-American honors from MaxPreps. He is ranked No. 6 among all senior prospects nationally.
Jones compiled one of the more impressive prep resumes in Oregon history, winning three state titles with the Democrats and earning 5A Player of the Year honors as a junior and senior.
Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon and UCLA were in the picture, but the the decision came down to Kentucky and Washington at the end. He managed to keep the media and fans in the dark throughout the process, helping build an audience of over 25,000 viewers to watch his original announcement April 30 live on The Oregonian's news site, oregonlive.com.
The highly-coveted Rose City star seemed to be making the call on the fly.
"I guess now I will be picking one. No one knows because I haven't made a decision yet," Jones said during the ceremony held at Jefferson in April before reaching for a black and purple Washington hat.
Jones had second thoughts immediately following the announcement and has kept Seattle and Lexington guessing in the 19 days since.
He joins a top-ranked incoming class at Kentucky that includes guards Brandon Knight, Doron Lamb and Stacey Poole Jr., as well as big men Enes Kanter of Turkey and junior college transfer Eloy Vargas.
