The nation’s top recruit, California power forward Marvin Bagley is one step closer to enrolling in college for the 2017 season.

According to Scout/247Sports.com’s Evan Daniels, Marvin Bagley has begun the process of reclassifying from the class of 2018 to the class of 2017 by filing paperwork with the NCAA Clearinghouse.

Daniels notes that merely filling the paperwork doesn’t guarantee that Bagley will make the jump to the college level, and is merely the first step in the NCAA reviewing his academic standing to see if reclassification is possible.

News that Bagley would visit Duke was first reported by TheDevilsDen.com prior to the Peach Jam. Shortly thereafter Bagley told TDD that he had been looking forward to visiting Durham following the event and that the Blue Devils had been “guiding him through the process”.

Bagley officially visited Duke last weekend and then completed another official visit to Southern California on Thursday. He is scheduled to take official visits to both UCLA and Arizona as well in the coming weeks.

Taking four of his five official visits seems to suggest that Bagley has a very good idea of where he stands academically and believes reclassification is likely to be granted by the NCAA Clearinghouse.

Currently the 247Sports.com Crystal Ball heavily favors Duke at 86 percent.