Kentucky interested in rising international recruit Flory Bidunga

Flory Bidunga first arrived in the United States from the Democratic Republic of the Congo ten months ago, electing to play at Kokomo High School (IN).

In that short time, Bidunga has made himself one of the fastest-rising recruits in all of high school basketball.

At Kokomo this past season, Bidunga averaged 17.5 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 5.3 blocks per game while leading the Wildcats to a 20-8 record and a run to the Indiana Class 4A Final Four. Bidunga carried over his impressive play to the Spring, which propelled him from unranked to No. 6 in Rival’s latest recruiting rankings.

Bidunga’s impressive play also earned him an invitation to last week’s NBPA Top 100, where the top 100 high school basketball prospects - as deemed by the NBPA - come to showcase their skills and play against each other.

After just 10 months of basketball, how did Bidunga fare?

In short, pretty impressively.

While still learning about Bidunga and yet to correctly pronounce his name, one coach told Adam Zagoria, “I don’t know who’s better than him in ’24, but he was dominant today.”

In five games, the 6-foot-9, 215-pound prospect averaged 10.4 points on a camp-leading 75.8% from the field to go along with 6.4 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game.

After such an impressive spring and NBPA Top 100 performance, many Power Five schools are becoming more interested or have already offered. Of those schools, the Kentucky Wildcats are one that has reached out and shown interest, confirmed by Kokomo coach John Peckinpaugh.

“They (Kentucky) like what everyone likes (about him). His motor’s unbelievable and he’s skilled around the rim. He plays extremely hard,” Peckinpaugh told Jack Pilgrim of Kentucky Sports Radio.

This sounds similar to another Congolese basketball player that goes by Oscar Tshiebwe, aka the reigning consensus National Player of the Year.

Peckinpaugh also went on to say, “He’s not all over social media himself, he just wants to get into the gym and work out, continue to get better and try to enjoy the process instead of letting it become something that would overwhelm him.”

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