About two months ago five-star 2016 recruit T.J. Leaf announced his de-commitment from Arizona and reopened his recruitment. Since then Leaf has been heavily recruited by a lot of teams but now it seems as though he is getting closer to making a decision as he has a couple of visits scheduled for the rest of October. Leaf will officially visit Oregon starting October 9th, Cal starting October 23rd and he will visit UCLA starting October 30th but he has also cancelled his official visit to Kansas, according to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv, which brings a little more clarity to where he might commit.
Officially Leaf's list is down to eight schools but Kansas was one of them and he only has visited or will visit four different schools. Leaf has already visited Louisville so it seems as though Louisville, Cal, Oregon and UCLA might be his final four schools. Of those four schools it appears that UCLA is the heavy favorite to land the five-star power forward, according to 247 Sports, as they have emerged as everyone's pick since he de-committed from Arizona.
Leaf is a 6 foot-9 power forward from El Cajon, California who is ranked as the 13th best overall prospect and the third best power forward in the 2016 class, according to ESPN. Leaf has been compared to Gonzaga senior Kyle Wiltjer by some people as he is a stretch four whose perimeter game has been growing and he has excellent ball handling skills for a big man. Leaf will need to bulk up a little bit in order to be able to bang down low with the big boys in college but a weight training program should take care of that.
As of right now UCLA's 2016 recruiting class is already ranked number six in the nation led by 6 foot-6 five-star point guard Lonzo Ball but adding Leaf would move them up a few spots on those rankings. Steve Alford and company would love to add another five-star to the mix and it seems very likely that they will. Leaf would be the Bruins' fourth commitment in 2016 after Ball, four-star center Ike Anigbogu and three-star shooting guard Kobe Paras.
