Blue Cain becomes UGA’s fourth Top-100 2023 signee

ATHENS, Ga. — Blue Cain, one of the nation’s premier prep shooting guards in the Class of 2023 from the IMG Academy, has signed a national letter-of-intent to continue his basketball career at the University of Georgia, head coach Mike White announced on Thursday.

The addition of Cain bolsters an already celebrated recruiting class for the Bulldogs. He becomes the fourth top-100 prep prospect to sign with Georgia, joining Silas Demary Jr., Dylan James and Mari Jordan and giving the Bulldogs a consensus top-20 recruiting effort. Georgia’s class is now ranked No. 13 by 247sports.com, No. 14 by rivals.com and No. 16 by On3.com. The quartet is rated as the second-best recruiting class in the SEC according to both 247 and rivals.

Cain, a 6-3, 180-pound shooting guard, is tabbed as high as the nation’s No. 47 overall prospect by On3.com. He also is listed at No. 52 by ESPN.com, No. 93 by rivals.com and No. 98 by 247Sports.com. A native of Knoxville, Tenn., Cain played for the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., as a senior. The Ascenders finished 18-8 and ranked No. 9 in ESPN’s SCNext Top 25 poll. Cain averaged 12.9 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals per game while shooting 61.1 percent from the field overall and 45.1 percent from 3-point range. He was named first-team All-NIBC (National Interscholastic Basketball Conference), a league which featured five of the top-10 teams in the final SCNext national rankings.

Cain played his first three seasons of high school basketball at Knoxville Catholic, where he helped the Fighting Irish compile a combined 74-12 record en route to winning the 2020 Division II-AA state title and finishing as runner up in 2022. Cain was named all-state by the Tennessee Sports Writers Association as both as sophomore and a junior. In 85 career outings with the Irish, he compiled 1,213 points (14.3 ppg), 400 rebounds (4.7 rpg), 253 assists (3.0 apg) and 191 steals (2.2 spg).

Cain also enjoyed a standout performance at the National Basketball Players Association’s Top-100 camp last summer. He earned all-tourney honors after averaging 10.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.4 steals per game at the event, which featured roughly 30 of the top-50 prospects in the Class of 2023.

All told, the Georgia staff has now signed seven newcomers to the Bulldogs’ 2023-24 roster. That group is ranked as the No. 17 overall recruiting class nationally by 247Sports.com.

During the NCAA’s early signing period last November, the Bulldogs inked two ESPN.com top-100 prep prospects – No. 83 Mari Jordan, a small forward from Norcross High School, and No. 90 Dylan James, a power forward from Winter Haven (Fla.) High School. Last Monday, Georgia added Silas Demary Jr., a guard from Raleigh, N.C. ranked as high as No. 41 nationally by On3.com.

In addition, Georgia has announced three transfers who will join the Bulldogs next season – Jalen DeLoach, an All-Atlantic 10 performer at VCU in 2022-23 who is originally from Savannah, Ga.; RJ Melendez, ESPN.com’s No. 56 recruit in the Class of 2021 who played at Illinois the last two seasons; and Russel Tchewa (pronounced chee-wuh), the second-leading rebounder in the American Athletic Conference and second-leading scorer for South Florida last season.

In Georgia’s first campaign under White last winter, the Bulldogs upped their win total by double digits from the 2021-22 season. Georgia’s +10 victory tally was the second-biggest regular-season improvement by any Power 5 program.