Official Visit Preview: Arafan Diane

Last week Kentucky hosted a couple of basketball visitors for official visits. Arafan Diane is scheduled to arrive in town later today and the Wildcats will have all weekend to impress the four-star 7-footer from Iowa United Prep.

Diane, who is originally from Guinea, has offers from Houston, Arkansas, Indiana, Virginia, SMU, Purdue, Arizona, Texas, Cincinnati, Arizona State, Louisville, Washington, West Virginia, UConn, Kansas, and many others.

Diane’s visit to Kentucky is the first he will have taken. He is planning to take official visits to Arkansas, Virginia, Indiana, and Houston between September 19 and late October.

Pope recently had an in-home visit with Diane and the Wildcats may have some momentum, plus a chance to serve as tone-setters with the first visit.

Diane is currently rated the No. 9 player in the Rivals150 for the 2026 class. He’s the No. 1 player in Iowa and the No. 1 center in the class. Rivals’ Jamie Shaw recently listed Diane as the No. 17 high school basketball recruit in the nation regardless of class.

Diane has been in the headlines a lot lately. Before this visit to Kentucky came up he narrowed his list of favorites to five. Those are the five schools he will be visiting.

Here’s Shaw’s most recent scouting report on Diane: “Based on the sheer size of Arafan Diane, you notice him immediately when he steps on the floor. The 7-foot-0 center has a hulking presence with good length.

He also has an interesting offensive game, scoring at each level throughout the camp, knocking down his only three attempt and hitting multiple mid range jumpers. Diane is a presence around the basket. He is comfortable getting over his left shoulder in the half court and has good footwork with the ball. He will need to continue getting stronger in his base and core and staying on top of his conditioning, but he created advantages in his area better than any big in this setting.

Diane is very loudly claiming his spot toward the top of his position list in the 2026 class. He is very offensively skilled, able to score consistently over both shoulders, make reads out of the post, and utilized balance and footwork when his initial move was cut off. A big who plays big is always intriguing, but one who can take space and create an advantage becomes unique.“

Shaw also recently wrote that Shaw has “distanced himself as a ready made five,” which helps explain his spot atop the national center rankings for the 2026 class.

“Arafan Diane has been a mainstay among Rivals’ top-35 players in this class for over a year at this point. Even as some Rivals subscribers might grow tired of reading his name, he continues to add new wrinkles to his game. The 7-foot-0 center recently moved into Rivals’ top-10 after a consistently dominant summer. Diane’s offensive game is ahead of his defense at this point. This summer, he averaged 16.9 points and shot 71.4 percent from the field, scoring 1.297 points per possession. Taking a step back and looking through the recruiting process of the transfer portal, you can see the importance of the five-man in college basketball. Having one who can step into minutes, as a freshman, is — a lot of times — rare, but also intriguing.

“Talking with one Power Five coach recently, they noted that there are no other centers in the high school ranks that bring what Diane does. They quickly added, “There might not be any in the portal this cycle either.” Diane is currently alone in the top tier of centers for this class.”

Kentucky hosted official visitors Caleb Holt and Maximo Adams after last weekend’s official visit.

While Arkansas was involved with Diane very early on this weekend Kentucky’s staff will have the opportunity to gauge where they stand and what it’s going to take to get him on board.