Tyran Stokes and Deron Rippey Jr. went head-to-head in The Border League this weekend

Two of Mark Pope‘s top 2026 recruiting targets faced off against each other this weekend.

On Saturday at The Border League in Las Vegas, five-star prospects Tyran Stokes and Deron Rippey Jr. went head-to-head in front of Kentucky assistant coach Jason Hart for a game that was livestreamed on the NBA’s YouTube channel. Stokes suited up for the Blue Knights while Rippey represented his high school team, Blair Academy (NJ).

But despite Stokes’ status as the top-ranked high school senior in the country, it was Rippey and Co. who came out on top with a tightly-contested 62-61 victory. On3’s Jamie Shaw even tabbed Rippey as the MVP from Saturday’s session. The 6-foot-2 point guard, ranked No. 13 nationally in his class, was a one-man highlight factory whenever he had the ball in transition. Stokes produced plenty of big plays in his own right, including an and-one finish with under a minute left that put his team ahead by one.

But Rippey would get the last laugh, knocking down a go-ahead runner in transition (over the outstretched arm of Stokes) with under 30 seconds to go. Stokes and the Blue Knights were unable to get off a final shot before the clock hit all zeros. The play we should all be talking about, though, came early in the game when Rippey whipped this underhanded pass to a teammate in traffic for a layup from his game on Friday.

i still can't believe this deron rippey pass after 10 watches, he's smothered and effectively falling over while he rips this into a nonexistent window with two defenders in the paint

absolute madman pic.twitter.com/kg8OwI2Qqc

— ben pfeifer (@bjpf_) October 4, 2025

Unfortunately, stats were not being tracked for these games (a crime in the year 2025!). So we don’t know exactly what the counting numbers looked like for these two. They also played games on Friday, Stokes and the Blue Knights beating RCA National 65-52, while Rippey and Blair Academy took down OTE’s RWE (led by new Kansas commit Tay Kinney) by a final score of 60-58 after trailing by over 20 points at one point. A New Jersey-based account posted that Rippey finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists in Friday’s win against Kinney and Co.

But who needs box scores when we have the full games easily accessible on video? You can watch Stokes and Rippey battle it out in the video below. Rippey isn’t scheduled to play again this weekend in the Border League, but Stokes will take the floor one more time. He’ll lead the Blue Knights tonight against Dynamic Prep at 9:00 p.m. ET.

From a recruiting angle, Kentucky is heavily in the mix for both Stokes and Rippey. The former is inching closer and closer to a decision date, with the Wildcats considered the frontrunner. The latter still has a few more official visits on the docket (including a trip to UK early this coming week), but Pope and his staff are right in the thick of the race for his commitment.