The big question now: Who stays — and who goes — from this Kentucky basketball team?
There will be no NCAA Tournament for this Kentucky team.
Now, the guessing — and the waiting — begins.
With the Wildcats’ loss to Mississippi State in the conference tournament Thursday afternoon, John Calipari’s bunch will not hear their names called on Selection Sunday, and the big question will turn from UK’s present to its future. Who will return to Lexington for another season? Who will move on to some other basketball destination?
While some stay-or-go announcements will likely be finalized in the coming days, it will probably take months for Kentucky’s 2021-22 roster to be fully settled. With the NBA’s season scheduled to last into late July and no firm 2021 draft calendar set, along with an anticipated overhaul to the NCAA’s transfer policy — allowing college players to jump schools this offseason without the penalty of sitting out a year — at least a few of these Cats’ decisions will probably linger into the late spring, or even summer.
Here’s what we know — or, at least, what we think we know — as of now.
Who’s leaving Kentucky?
Freshman forward Cam’Ron Fletcher, the lowest-ranked player in UK’s No. 1 recruiting class, has entered the NCAA transfer portal, the school confirmed Saturday afternoon.
Fletcher barely played at all following a public incident on the bench at the end of UK’s loss to North Carolina in December and the brief suspension that followed.
Even coming into this season, there were those in recruiting circles who thought Fletcher would be a one-and-done at Kentucky. As a transfer, not an NBA Draft pick. It was a bit of a surprise that Fletcher, who was originally recruited to UK by former assistant coach Kenny Payne, returned to the team at all after Calipari sent him home in December.
The Wildcats’ coach did laud Fletcher last weekend for how he had handled the past few months relegated to UK’s bench — playing just seven minutes in two games since the UNC loss Dec. 19 — but Fletcher’s time in Lexington is apparently finished.
Graduate transfer center Olivier Sarr, possible NBA lottery pick Isaiah Jackson, and former top-10 recruit Terrence Clarke are all expected to be gone, as well.
Even with the NCAA extending an extra year of eligibility to all players due to the uncertainty the COVID-19 pandemic had on this season, there’s no sign that Sarr will be back for another run.
Jackson has been the most impressive newcomer in UK’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class and played his way into the first round of this year’s draft. Clarke, despite missing most of the season due to injury, is still expected to head to the professional ranks next season.
ESPN ranks Jackson as the No. 8 overall prospect in the NBA Draft, with Clarke coming in at No. 62 — two picks outside of draft range — though he, too, is expected to be drafted if he goes this year.
There has been some recent speculation — fueled even more by Calipari’s comments after the regular-season finale last weekend — that Brandon Boston might return for another season.
Boston was a top-five recruit in the 2020 class and projected as a top-five pick in this year’s draft, but his stock has plummeted with his uneven play as a freshman. ESPN ranks him as the No. 34 overall prospect in the draft, which would put him outside of first-round territory, though several other national outlets still project him as a first-round pick.
Could he come back, get better and stronger, and try to boost his stock for next year’s draft?
“Every day I look in that gym, whether it’s after practice or morning, he’s in there,” Calipari said last weekend. “Here is the issue for him. It’s not mental. It’s physical. He’s physically not able to do what his mind is telling him to do. I’m trying to get him to make the easiest plays, catch-and-shoot, one-dribble pull-ups. If you get to the rim, try to get fouled because it’s not anything mental. It is more physical and that, you know, it holds him back a little bit at this point.
“But he’s never lost the fight. This stuff has been hard for him. And it’s also eye-opening to know as an individual player, ‘Man, physically, this thing, I’m not where I need to be physically.’ And so you know, we’ve had other guys, it was like Immanuel (Quickley) — ‘This is way harder than I thought and I didn’t have a good year, but I’m coming back, and you watch, no one will out-work me.’ Those are the guys that should come back, that mentality. PJ Washington, that mentality. ‘I’m not coming back to do show time. I’m not coming back to say, “Hey, this is my team.” I am coming back because I’m going to get better and I can accept that I didn’t play the way I needed to play. And this is way harder than I thought.’”
Calipari went on to imply that he wouldn’t necessarily try to talk Boston into staying. Rather, he plans to leave the decision up to the player, as he has done in past situations, and he’ll be there for any questions Boston or any other Wildcat has during that process.
“I like when kids go through the (draft) process, because teams aren’t going to lie to them. They are going to tell them the truth,” he said.
All that said, it would still come as a pretty big surprise if Boston returns for a sophomore season. It’s just not a scenario — former top-five recruit who is still likely a first-round pick comes back to school? — that has happened in the Calipari era.
Until it does, it’s probably best to guess that Boston will be draft-bound this year.
Who’s staying at Kentucky?
If Sarr, Jackson, Boston and Clarke all go — in addition to Fletcher’s departure — that would leave Kentucky with six additional scholarship players from this team, along with transfer center Oscar Tshiebwe, and three incoming recruits: point guard Nolan Hickman, wing Bryce Hopkins, and power forward Daimion Collins.
That’s 10 scholarship players, and the Cats are allowed 13 scholarships.
So, who’s most likely from that group to be back?
Sophomore forward Jacob Toppin transferred from Rhode Island this time last year fully intending to sit out this season to work on his strength and overall game. Once it became clear that the NCAA would give out a transfer waiver to practically anyone who asked, Toppin applied, was granted immediate eligibility and ultimately turned into a key player on this team.
He didn’t play his way into any NBA Draft conversations, but he did flash enough promise to think he could be in that mix somewhere down the line. Toppin came to Kentucky with the long-term in mind, and it certainly seems like he’ll be back next season.
Freshman forward Lance Ware arrived at Kentucky with a similar, big-picture mindset. He’s been playing basketball for only a few years and came to college with the goal of getting better over time, learning along the way.
Ware played quite regularly during the middle of the season before seeing his opportunities largely decline in recent weeks, though he did play 17 minutes Thursday. He figures to be a building block in this program’s long-term future, and there’s no reason to think he won’t be back for a sophomore season.
Freshman guards Dontaie Allen and Devin Askew are interesting cases.
Allen, the 2019 Kentucky Mr. Basketball, went from practically no playing time to key scorer to practically no playing time in a whirlwind season in which he emerged as a fan favorite. He returned to prominence again Thursday, knocking down six threes and scoring a team-high 23 points against Mississippi State.
Askew, a highly touted recruit, played major minutes from the start as the closest thing to a point guard on this UK roster, but his struggles in the high-profile position led him to become a lightning rod for fan angst over the team’s disappointing season.
Kentucky is clearly still looking for backcourt help for next season — the Cats are considered early leaders for talented transfer guard Justin Powell — and any game-ready additions to that roster would obviously impact the future playing time of both Allen and Askew.
A couple of points in favor of continuity: Kentucky is expecting both players to return for next season, and, more importantly, neither Allen, Askew nor anyone in their respective families has made any indication that a transfer is in the works. In fact, both players have signaled in recent days that they will be back at Kentucky next season.
Official announcements from UK could be coming soon.
Allen is a Kentucky kid who has always wanted to play for the Wildcats. Askew is a determined 18-year-old who has said repeatedly that he’s in this for the long haul, specifically differentiating himself from some other West Coast recruits who have transferred out of Kentucky early.
UK’s coaches see promising futures for both players.
Allen was one of two UK players chosen to speak to reporters after Thursday’s game, and he was asked what his message to Kentucky fans would be following this disappointing season. He certainly sounded like someone who would be back in Lexington.
“I would say to stay with us for the following seasons,” Allen said. “That’s one thing — if you really look at the team — you could say, ‘They didn’t have the best of records.’ You could say, ‘They weren’t good.’ You can have any excuse you want, but this team fought. Every single game. That’s something you can’t say we didn’t do. There was fight every time. So I would just say to stay with us.”
Two big question marks
The most intriguing stay-or-go decisions — and likely the biggest, in regard to Kentucky’s future — belong to graduate transfer guard Davion Mintz and sophomore forward Keion Brooks.
Mintz, who has become UK’s most consistent player, could use the NCAA’s rule granting an extra year of eligibility to return to Lexington for one more season, and, unlike Sarr, he’s actually indicated that he’s seriously considering it.
“No idea. We just lost, so I’m just processing that right now,” Mintz said after Thursday’s loss when asked about his future.
The 22-year-old guard is enrolled in a two-year graduate program at UK, and sticking around would allow him to finish his degree while also getting one more season of college basketball, which presumably, would be played under more normal circumstances than this one.
Mintz has had nothing but good things to say about his Kentucky experience, despite this unorthodox and disappointing season from a team perspective. He would have professional options if he leaves, and — while those would still be around after next season — perhaps he’s ready to move on after spending five years in college. But UK’s coaches would love to have him back, and he could be a major contributor as a Wildcat next season.
Brooks missed the first nine games of the season with an injury that lingered from the fall, and he’s cooled off some recently after a pretty hot start to his sophomore campaign.
There’s certainly a lot of potential in Brooks’ game, but he’s not considered a likely NBA Draft pick this year and is completely absent from ESPN’s list of the top 100 prospects. (There are only 60 total picks, remember).
Logic would dictate that Brooks returns for a junior season, though — as UK fans know well — draft projections haven’t stopped Kentucky players from leaving school early and going undrafted. And only four out-of-state scholarship recruits in the Calipari era — Willie Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress, Marcus Lee and Nick Richards — have played more than two seasons for the Cats.
Brooks could very well join that list.
He has embraced his role as a team leader and seems like the type of player who would blossom even more in that area with another season. Obviously, his game still has plenty of upside, and tapping into that could land him on draft boards a year from now. His family has also given no indication that they want to hurry him through the college process. If he returns, Brooks could be an All-SEC-type of player next season while leading a team that should — despite this season’s struggles — have some lofty expectations nationally.
Over the past three years, no Kentucky team has returned more than four scholarship players from the previous season, a spate of roster turnover that has led to a major lack of continuity in Calipari’s program.
This team looks like one that could actually add some foundation for the future of Kentucky basketball, but there’s still plenty of uncertainty, and the NCAA transfer portal is expected to draw an unprecedented number of players in the coming weeks.
For Calipari and Kentucky fans, the wait begins now.
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 2:09 PM.
