Oregon Ducks Recruiting: Aaron Gordon officially visiting Arizona Wildcats

2013 five-star SF/PF recruit Aaron Gordon is officially visiting the Arizona Wildcats this weekend, and this is a huge visit for Arizona and head coach Sean Miller, who is in a stiff race to try and land the sixth-best recruit in the land. The consensus top pick out west, Gordon’s recruitment is heating up in the midst of the official visits he has been taking.

The Wildcats, Washington Huskies, and Oregon Ducks are viewed as the teams in the best position to land him, while the Kansas Jayhawks, California Golden Bears, and Stanford Cardinal are right in the thick of it as well. John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats are always a threat as well, and he has an official visit scheduled with those Wildcats next month, after Coach Cal visited Gordon in September.

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The high-energy forward has been compared to some top talents such as Blake Griffin, and the brother of former UCLA Bruins star Drew Gordon has already made a huge name for himself in the basketball world. The likely NBA-bound Oakland Soldiers star has been a monster on the AAU circuit for one of the top teams out there, and he is arguably the best dunk-artist in high school hoops.

Last weekend was Gordon’s official visit to the Kansas Jayhawks, with Bill Self coming on strong recently. He received a big five-star commit just five days ago in small forward Wayne Selden and is looking to add another top talent in this class.

Gordon took an official visit to the Oregon Ducks early this month and visited UW in late September, but there is more to the picture than just his top three schools of Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. Most recruiting analysts believe that the Huskies have the best chance at landing the supremely talented forward, and it’s tough not to think that they are the favorites. They were able to pick up a key commitment from top shooting guard Darin Johnson last week. Johnson actually had Oregon has his leader coming into an official visit to Seattle a week earlier, but the 105th-ranked recruit in the 247Composite ended up committing to the rivals.

But Washington is definitely going to have a tougher time bringing in Gordon, because Lorenzo Romar has to deal with other top recruiters such as Sean Miller and Self. Those two have done an excellent job in coming into the picture for Gordon, but things are as wide open as it gets at this point.

For some reason, I can’t help but think that Gordon will stay in the Pac-12 with the only team outside the conference having a good shot at landing him being KU. Kentucky has a key official visit set and, again, always seems to have a good shot with Calipari leading the way, but UK has already added so many top recruits at the forward position and is continuing to pursue more.

At this point, Washington has the best shot at landing him but by an extremely little margin. This visit to Arizona is likely the most crucial visit for Gordon’s recruitment, because it could very well decide the balance between which Pac-12 recruiting power has the upper hand in his recruitment. Oregon has steadily been the third wheel among the teams out west in the picture, so this visit mostly affects the Wildcats and Huskies.

You can follow Joe Soriano on Twitter @SorianoJoe.