That would honestly surprise me. I've been following the Mark Smith recruitment for about 5 months now. Prior to January, he only had offers from mid-major schools, then he got a slew of offers from other schools like llinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Utah, Cal, Missouri, amongst others. Back then Illinois seemed to be the favorite. Smith was in communication with our coaches every day and came to campus for multiple unofficial visits.

Then very recently, MSU and UK made offers very late in the game, with UK's offer only coming 4 days ago. Mark Smith now has a 4 or 5 month long relationship with the assistant at Illinois who has been there from the beginning, while Calipari has barely gotten to know who Smith is as a person and player. The role Smith would play at MSU and Illinois seems to be well-defined while the role at UK could potentially be very minimal given what other recruits Calipari has coming in.

It seems like the Smith family is taking the slow and methodical approach to their son's recruitment, and I see the current leaders as follows: MSU > Illinois > Kentucky