The Boy is ready and the time is now.

He’s ready to leave New England, ready to embrace everything that comes with playing for the biggest brand in college basketball and ready to truly start setting the tone for what should be a long NBA career.

Terrence Clarke is ready to be a man. By the time John Calipari gets his hands on him, the plan is for Clarke to become The Man. 

Clarke committed to the University of Kentucky as a member of the Class of 2020  in front of family, friends and members of the community at the Vine Street Community Center in Roxbury, MA on Saturday afternoon.  

The addition of Clarke immediately gives Kentucky the #1 Recruit Class in the nation. While Duke and Memphis have additional targets in their crosshairs and time to make up ground, Calipari’s latest crew puts the Wildcats in position to have the country’s top class for the first time since 2016 when De’Aron Fox, Bam Adebayo and local-product Wenyen Gabriel highlighted the haul. Clarke is the top-ranked prospect in a class that also includes 6’6” wing BJ Boston, 6’6” wing Cam’ron Fletcher and 6’9” big Lance Ware heading into the ’19-’20 season.

Clarke has some unfinished business to attend to before he heads to Lexington, KY as well. While most of the postseason honors  -McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American Games- are almost a lock at this point, leading Brewster to their 7th National Prep Championship will be paramount for him in 2020. If he is able to lead Jason Smith’s exceptionally talented squad to back-to-back ‘chips, Clarke would become only the 3rd player in Brewster history to win two National Championships.

He and teammate Jamal Mashburn Jr. would join Donovan Mitchell and Jared Reuter, members of the ’14 & ’15 title teams, as the only Brewster players to earn multiple National Championship rings.

There’s also some new competition for Clarke from an individual point of view. Now that he’s reclassified to 2020, he’s universally considered one of the top-4 prospects in the class with Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green as his closest competition.

While all four bring different value to the table, a case could easily be made that Cunningham and Clarke own the type of skillsets that will translates best and make the largest impact at the next level. Cunningham may currently hold a slight lead in that category but we’ll have all season to argue about who should finish at the top.

Clarke will have plenty of opportunities to showcase his ability to lead a team in ’19-’20. The Brewster offense will ask him to play with the ball in his hands more than ever before and he enters his final prep season fully-equipped to handle the job.

More questions, more expectations, more responsibilities. It’s something that he’s used to by now. Terrence Clarke has answered, prepared for and accepted the ones that have been put on his plate so far.

You’d be a fool to bet against him in the future.

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