Kentucky basketball mailbag: What will UK do if Shaedon Sharpe goes pro?
Last week, we asked for your questions related to Kentucky basketball and UK’s recruiting efforts.
Here’s Part 1 of this month’s mailbag series, concentrating largely on the status of Shaedon Sharpe and the Wildcats’ outlook for next season (with or without the former No. 1 recruit).
Do you see us adding another wing in the 2022 class with the speculation now on Shaedon Sharpe (leaving for the NBA)?
If Sharpe leaves for the NBA Draft after this season — and many outside of Lexington seem to think he will — Kentucky will surely need to find some kind of replacement.
That’ll be easier said than done, considering Sharpe is/was projected to be one of the top perimeter players in all of college basketball next season.
UK won’t be getting such a player from the 2022 class. At least, not from the current pool of available prospects.
The only uncommitted five-star player in the 2022 class is 6-foot-7 guard Anthony Black, and Kentucky is not one of the schools he’s considering. In fact, UK is no longer recruiting any additional players in the 2022 class. (The Cats have already signed point guard Skyy Clark, combo guard Cason Wallace and wing Chris Livingston).
There’s a chance a coaching carousel move or some other incident could lead an impact player to reopen his recruitment — like with TyTy Washington last year — but that would be an unexpected event.
There’s also a chance that a top player currently in the 2023 class could decide to reclassify to 2022 and play college basketball next season. We’ve seen a fair amount of reclassifications in recent recruiting cycles, and there’s no reason to expect that won’t continue this offseason.
One name to watch there is Mookie Cook, a five-star wing in the 2023 class and one of Kentucky’s top targets in that group. UK hosted Cook for an official visit in the fall, and he was one of the first 2023 prospects to earn a Wildcats scholarship offer. He also plays for the same Arizona high school that produced Washington, so there’s some additional familiarity there.
Asking around last week, I was told that reclassification is very much on the table for Cook, who is ranked No. 4 nationally in the junior class by Rivals.com and No. 5 by both 247Sports and ESPN. He’s been talked about this winter as a possible No. 1 player in that 2023 class.
The 6-7 wing from Portland, Ore., is a dynamic and athletic perimeter player who has continued to show an ability to make shots with range. He also projects as a good-to-great defender at the next level.
Kentucky got the first official visit of Cook’s recruitment, and he was on Oregon’s campus over the weekend for his second such trip. There’s been a lot of buzz in recent weeks about the Ducks and possibly a professional route like the G League, if Cook does decide to reclassify, but UK is obviously high on his list, as well. (He’s also planning to visit Gonzaga and Memphis in the coming weeks, though Kentucky and Oregon are seen as the college favorites).
If Sharpe does decide to go to the NBA Draft this year — and he makes that call in a timely manner — that could open up a starring role for Cook (or some other talented wing recruit) in Lexington next season. It’ll surely be a situation to watch this spring.
I’m increasingly of the belief Sharpe won’t play at UK at all (don’t blame him). How does next year’s team look without him? Expect an impact transfer if he goes to the draft? Is it possible to predict who that could be?
Kentucky is still likely to have a high-caliber roster next season, even if Sharpe leaves.
Cason Wallace and Chris Livingston are top-10 national recruits. Skyy Clark was a five-star point guard before suffering a torn ACL last summer, and — though his ranking has dropped — he’s now back on the court and should be an impact player as a freshman next season.
Returning players are always tough to predict at this point in the season, but it’s reasonable to think that Daimion Collins and Bryce Hopkins will be back for their sophomore seasons. Jacob Toppin and Lance Ware also seem to be likely returnees. And don’t forget about Iowa transfer CJ Fredrick, the sharp-shooting three-point threat who is sitting out this season with an injury but should be ready to go for 2022-23.
Who’s not coming back? Kellan Grady and Davion Mintz will be out of eligibility. TyTy Washington will be in the NBA Draft. Oscar Tshiebwe will likely turn pro, too. I’d expect Keion Brooks and Sahvir Wheeler to, at the very least, test the pro waters, and possibly leave. Dontaie Allen will be subject to speculation over his future after playing very little in recent games. (In this “free transfer” era, expect pretty much everyone on the roster to have such rumors around them at some point).
So, projecting it fairly conservatively, the roster could include Clark, Wallace and Fredrick at the guard positions, Livingston, Toppin and Hopkins as bigger wings capable of playing on the perimeter, and Collins and Ware in the frontcourt.
Obviously, a return of Brooks, Wheeler and/or Allen would further bolster next season’s team. But in a scenario where none of those guys return — and Sharpe goes pro — that would leave Kentucky with just eight scholarship players, and I’d expect John Calipari to add at least three more at that point. You’d think at least one more guard and one more big man would be on the target list, and the transfer portal would be the most likely source of such additions. (And, yes, it’s probably too early to accurately speculate on specific names of players that might transfer to UK this season).
I fully expect Calipari to end up with a formidable roster for next season, especially after the way the UK staff built this current roster through offseason transfers.
The problem, however, is finding an impact player the caliber of Sharpe, if he does leave.
Kentucky got lucky that a recruit as talented as TyTy Washington became available so late in the cycle last year. The Cats also got lucky that they hit on Oscar Tshiebwe as a midseason transfer. Calipari will attract talented players, but it probably shouldn’t be expected that he can get one or two with that much talent under the same circumstances every year.
So, while next season’s roster will be a good one, it could very well be missing that “it” player that can turn a team from very good to great. Tshiebwe — and, to some extent, Washington — has been that for Kentucky this season. Sharpe could be that for UK next season. But if he leaves for the pros, that type of talent will simply be difficult to replace on the fly.
With the veterans’ success this year, do you think Cal might lean on the transfer portal more?
Absolutely. There’s no question about it.
Kentucky’s transfers have been a driving force for what is looking like a team that could land a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Oscar Tshiebwe has exceeded all possible expectations. Kellan Grady is leading the Southeastern Conference in three-point shooting. Sahvir Wheeler is leading the league in assists. UK’s all-in approach to the transfer portal last year is nothing short of a major success.
Calipari has also clearly enjoyed this process.
This roster was once again made up of mostly new faces, and there were some growing pains as everyone got acquainted and worked out their roles, but the product on the basketball court has clearly been different this season, and this team has benefited from the ample college experience of guys like Grady, Wheeler, Tshiebwe, Davion Mintz and others.
Calipari hasn’t been shy about how much he’s preferred the coaching side of this season compared to some previous ones. Instead of having to drive home basic fundamentals to a bunch of 18- and 19-year-olds, Calipari has been able to rely on veterans who know what they’re doing and have already proven themselves against elite college competition.
“They have an idea of what I’m talking about, because they’ve done it before,” Calipari said after his experienced team obliterated No. 5 Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse last month. “You can lean on them.”
In most seasons, his teams have been heavily reliant on freshmen. This season, TyTy Washington is the only such player getting much run, and — while they surely would like to play more — the practice time against older players and experience gained over the past few months in lower-pressure situations will likely be beneficial in the long term to guys like Daimion Collins, Bryce Hopkins and sophomore Lance Ware, who’s still relatively new to the sport.
Calipari has hit on a winning formula here. There’s no reason to think he won’t go back to that well this offseason. And I’d expect at least a couple of transfers for next season’s roster.
Any chance Oscar Tshiebwe’s visa could get sorted out to tempt him back with NIL money?
I don’t see this happening.
Tshiebwe — like most college athletes from a foreign country — is in the United States on an F-1 student visa, which prevents him from benefiting financially from basically all opportunities that would come with recent name, image and likeness reforms.
This isn’t an NCAA issue that can simply be solved with changes made by college administrators. This is immigration policy that would need to be overhauled at the federal level, and — while this issue has been discussed for several months now — there are no indications a fix is anywhere near that would allow Tshiebwe and the thousands of other international athletes in the same position a chance to benefit off NIL while in college.
I’m also not sure it would have any effect on next season if Tshiebwe could make money off NIL.
The Kentucky center turns 23 at the start of the 2022-23 season, and he’s been in college for three years already. It seemed like the most likely scenario coming into this season was that Tshiebwe would play one year at Kentucky and then move on to the pros. He’s been stellar so far this season — a leading national player of the year contender — and that would only seem to increase the likelihood that he’ll move on this offseason.
ESPN ranks Tshiebwe as the No. 43 prospect for the 2022 draft, putting him in the middle of the second round. Some other projections don’t include Tshiebwe at all among the 58 picks in this year’s draft, but it seems like there’s a good shot that some team sitting in the second round would take a chance on someone who rebounds the way Tshiebwe does, plays with such energy, and, by all accounts, brings a winning attitude to his team.
He’s a low-risk pick late in a draft. Even if no one picks him, Tshiebwe will certainly get a shot to make an NBA roster. And if he can’t catch on in the NBA, he’ll have plenty of offers to play in foreign leagues and make good money.
It’s just difficult to see him turning down such opportunities — and further delaying the clock on his pro career — to come back to college for another season, even if there is some magical fix to the current guidelines that are keeping him from making money while he’s here.
Also, there’s not a whole lot left for him to prove at this level. He leads the nation in rebounding. He’s become an intense focus of other teams’ game plans (and he’s still putting up impressive numbers). He’s even shown some promise as a jump shooter. Short of transforming into a bonafide three-point threat — and do we really think he’d play such a role next season at Kentucky? — I’m not sure what else he can do to show off his game to NBA scouts.
Tshiebwe will get his chance to prove he belongs, and NBA decision-makers will decide whether or not his brand of basketball fits the current profile of the league. If it doesn’t, he’ll make a living playing somewhere else.
I’d expect Kentucky to go looking into the transfer portal yet again to add at least one more impact big man for next season. The Cats probably won’t find an Oscar Tshiebwe, but there should be some talented options available.
This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
