Duke beats Kentucky for top prospect, promptly subtweets John Calipari

6:49 PM ET

Thursday afternoon’s biggest college hoops news came from Texas, where five-star center Marques Bolden, the No. 16-ranked player in the 2016 ESPN 100, officially committed to Duke. This was a big deal, for two reasons:

It added yet another immensely talented freshman to Duke’s sterling 2016 class, which is led by the top two overall prospects in the country (Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum) and has, alongside All-ACC guard Grayson Allen’s return, made the Blue Devils the prohibitive 2016-17 favorites.

Bolden chose Duke over Kentucky.

In other words, Thursday was merely the latest salvo in the ongoing arms race between the sport’s two royal bluebloods. For most of John Calipari’s tenure in Lexington, the Wildcats were an unchallenged talent-acquisition (and NBA draftee-creation) hegemon. In recent seasons, though, Duke — most notably in 2014-15, when NBA-bound freshmen led coach Mike Krzyzewski to his fifth national title — has pulled neck-and-neck with Calipari and his …

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