Father: Xavier Henry still considering playing at Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Xavier Henry, an incoming college freshman committed to play basketball at Kansas, still is considering playing for the University of Kentucky, his father told a Kansas City radio station today.
In a taped interview that aired on Tuesday's Chris and Cowboy show on 610-AM in Kansas City, Carl Henry said that his son — a top 30 recruit from Oklahoma City who originally signed with John Calipari at Memphis — wanted to follow Calipari to UK before ultimately committing to the Jayhawks.

Because he signed and was released from a national letter of intent at Memphis, Xavier Henry is prohibited from signing a second LOI. That leaves him free to attend another school. He has not enrolled in summer school at Kansas.

Xavier Henry hoped to play for Calipari at Kentucky, Carl Henry said, but chose to commit to Kansas because his mother, Barbara — who is divorced from Carl Henry — wanted to live near her son in college and did not want to move to Lexington.

"If it wasn't for his momma saying that 'I would not go to Kentucky, I would not move down to Kentucky,' Xavier would have been at Kentucky,'" Carl Henry said during the radio interview. "He would have been at Kentucky. So Xavier says, 'I'm going to go to Kansas.' Even though that's what he wanted to do is go to Kentucky, play under Coach Cal. That's what he wanted to do. I expressed this to (Kansas) coach (Bill) Self. I told him."

Now, Carl Henry said, Barbara Henry does not want to be a deciding factor in Xavier's college decision.

"So guess what? Kid might have a change of mind," Carl Henry said. "That's what I tell coach Self. If he has a change of mind, so what? So be it. He has a change of mind."

Xavier's older brother C.J., a former player in the New York Yankees' minor league system, enrolled at Memphis last year to play basketball. He sat out the season due to injury, then announced his intent to transfer to Kansas along with Xavier.

Carl Henry said he wasn't sure if C.J. also was still considering UK.

Carl Henry said that he's wavering in his commitment to Kansas in part because he's friends with UK signees John Wall and Daniel Orton, who have continued to campaign for him to join the Wildcats' top-ranked recruiting class.

Calipari has not talked to Xavier, Carl Henry said.

Carl Henry said that Xavier told him "a couple weeks ago" that he was interested in UK. Carl Henry said he made a call to Calipari at that time.

"When my son told me that, I reached out one time," Carl Henry said. "I called Coach Cal to see if he had a scholarship."

UK has 12 scholarship players for the 2009-10 season. The NCAA allows 13 scholarships for men's basketball