The season is over. Here’s who’s likely to go, who might stay on this UK basketball team.
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Men’s NCAA Tournament: Saint Peter’s stuns Kentucky
Click below to view more content from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com on the Kentucky’s men’s basketball team’s loss to 15th-seeded Saint Peter’s on Thursday night in the NCAA East Regional at Indianapolis.
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The 2021-22 season is finished for these Kentucky Wildcats following a stunning 85-79 overtime loss to 15-seeded Saint Peter’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night.
Attention will quickly turn to what’s next for UK basketball and John Calipari, who hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2019 and heads into yet another uncertain postseason filled with stay-or-go decisions that will have a tremendous impact on the immediate future of the program.
Two certainties are the departures of graduate guards Kellan Grady and Davion Mintz, key players on this Wildcats team who are now out of college eligibility. Freshman guard TyTy Washington, who was UK’s leading backcourt scorer, is projected as an NBA lottery pick and also certain to leave this offseason.
There are varying degrees of mystery over who else might follow, but it’s probable there will be additional departures, and it’s likely to take several weeks before the roster for the 2022-23 season becomes more clear.
Here’s an early look at who will leave and who will stay with Kentucky basketball.
Tshiebwe and Sharpe
The two decisions that will have the biggest impact on next season are those of national player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe and former No. 1 recruit Shaedon Sharpe.
Both are transcendent talents. The return of either player — coupled with what else Kentucky is expected to have on next season’s roster — would once again put the Cats in the national title conversation next preseason. The loss of both would leave Calipari with major holes to fill.
The bad news for Kentucky fans first …
Sharpe, despite the consistent messaging from his camp over the past couple of months, is expected to enter the NBA Draft, where he’s considered a lock to be a lottery pick — and a possible top-five selection — without ever having played a game of college basketball.
Calipari did not address Sharpe’s future immediately after Thursday night’s loss, but he did revisit the decision not to play the 6-foot-6 shooting guard, who had been ranked as the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2022 class before enrolling in classes at Kentucky two months ago.
The UK coach is already being second-guessed on whether he should have played Sharpe this season.
“At one point, he and I sat down and talked about it,” Calipari said when asked if Sharpe ever looked in practices like he could be a real contributor on this team. “But you know, I think that was what was best for him is how we did it. Would he have been a good player this year? Yeah, he’d been pretty good. He’d have been pretty good. But he joined us at midseason. Trying to get him up to all the stuff that we were doing was hard.
“Then it came a point late, maybe we could shove him in there. But we just, you know, together, chose, let’s just wait.”
Sharpe’s decision probably won’t be a quick one. Publicly, at least. Assuming that previous years’ deadlines are adhered to — with the NBA Draft withdrawal date typically set 10 days after the end of the league’s combine — Sharpe and others weighing such a move will have until June 1 to make a final call. At this point, it’ll be a surprise if that call is a return to Lexington.
Tshiebwe’s future is more uncertain.
A couple of weeks ago, the word both inside and outside of Kentucky’s program was that the nation’s leading rebounder was expected to return for a second season with the Wildcats. Assuming Tshiebwe remains able to profit off name, image and likeness reforms — something he was not allowed to do for most of the season, due to rules basically barring international athletes from engaging in such activities — he is set to make millions of dollars (plural) if he comes back to UK, the Herald-Leader has been told.
On the eve of the tournament, however, the thinking on Tshiebwe’s plans for next season had shifted somewhat. There’s been legitimate word in recent days that the UK big man’s NBA Draft stock is on the rise (not surprising), and that he could even have a chance to go in the first round of this year’s draft (somewhat surprising).
Asking around in the days leading up to the NCAA Tournament, it sounded more like a “50-50” type of situation for a return of Tshiebwe, who, by all accounts, has loved his time in Lexington but will need to take a long look at his NBA prospects and future plans following this season.
With more than two months until the draft withdrawal deadline, this could be a long wait for UK fans, and the national player of the year offered no new insight into his next move after the loss to Saint Peter’s on Thursday night.
“I don’t know yet. I don’t know,” he said. “That’s a decision that I will (discuss) with Coach. I don’t know.”
Calipari said he would talk about it with his star player in the near future.
“He and I will sit down in the next day or two to figure out what path is for him,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this: You talk about a pleasure to coach, this whole team. I mean, like I’m sick right now for them. Just disappointed that, you know, I wish I had an answer or two. I just do.”
Key Kentucky returnees?
Tshiebwe, Washington, Grady and Mintz made up four of the “core seven” players on this Kentucky squad. What about the other three?
In order of most likely to leave, to most likely to stay …
Junior forward Keion Brooks averaged 10.8 points and 4.4 rebounds, starting in every game he played this season. If he came back, he’d obviously be a key part of next season’s team. But will he?
A transfer was quietly discussed last offseason with Brooks, who obviously returned to Lexington for a third season. It seems like — at this stage in his career, and after emerging as a starter for one of the nation’s premier programs — Brooks wouldn’t leave UK for another school.
There have been rumblings throughout the season, however, that this would be his last as a Wildcat. He’s not listed among ESPN’s top 100 prospects for the NBA Draft, but that hasn’t stopped UK players in the past from getting an early start to their pro careers. Only one out-of-state scholarship player in the Calipari era has stayed four years: Alex Poythress, who suffered a season-ending knee injury his junior year. A return by Brooks would certainly be an outlier in recent Kentucky basketball history, and it should probably be counted as a mild surprise if he’s back.
After the loss, Brooks said he was proud of the way this team had grown together throughout the course of the season. He then reflected more broadly on his three years at Kentucky since joining the program as a five-star recruit.
“My tenure here has been a little funky and difficult — a little different — but I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he said. “Coming here, I’ve learned a lot. Beyond being a basketball player. Coach Cal has done a great job of shaping me into a better man. And that being said, I don’t regret anything that I’ve been through as long as I’ve been here.”
Starting point guard Sahvir Wheeler tested the NBA Draft waters after his sophomore season at Georgia last year, didn’t like what he found, jumped into the transfer portal and ended up at Kentucky. At the time of that move, it was expected behind the scenes that Wheeler would play one season for the Cats and move on to the pros.
Wheeler is not projected as an NBA Draft pick this year either, however, and it seems unlikely that another season of college basketball would propel him into that conversation, barring major changes to his game. He’ll likely go through the draft process again, and neither outcome would be a surprise.
Junior forward Jacob Toppin showed more flashes of great potential in his second season with the Wildcats, and he could be a major player on next season’s team, especially if he gains some consistency and continues to take positive steps in becoming a more complete player.
Toppin might test the draft waters, but he’s not on ESPN’s top 100 list. Another season of college could easily vault him into that picture by this time next year, however, and it’s expected that he’ll be back in Lexington for another run.
Roster continuity at UK
With those previously mentioned seven players getting most of the minutes this season, four scholarship Wildcats were largely relegated to the bench. There’s certain to be plenty of speculation around all four of those players this spring.
Former McDonald’s All-American Daimion Collins has the highest upside in that group. Viewed as a potential lottery pick before starting his college career, the highly athletic power forward barely played in the stretch run of the season, proving early on that he wasn’t quite ready to make a major impact at this level.
Collins surely won’t be going pro. Like the others in this section, a transfer is possible, but Collins has been talking positively about his UK experience to younger recruits, and it’s expected that the Texas native will be back for next season, when Kentucky’s coaches are hoping he can take some major steps to fill that nearly unlimited potential.
Sophomore big man Lance Ware was the subject of much praise from John Calipari this season, especially down the stretch, with the UK coach often going out of his way to positively point out Ware’s basketball smarts and willingness to do whatever is necessary on the court. That’s a clear sign that Calipari would love to have him back in Lexington next season. There has been talk out in the recruiting world of a possible transfer, but Ware seems content at UK, and it’s important to note that he got a late start to his basketball career, so there should still be plenty of room to grow as a player.
One interesting thing to keep in mind with Ware: he was mentored in high school by Pervis Ellison, who obviously played at Louisville with Kenny Payne, who is the new coach of the Cardinals. There are also some deeper connections between Ware and Payne, so — until Ware says he’s coming back — that UK-to-U of L possibility is likely to get plenty of ink this offseason.
Freshman forward Bryce Hopkins has also received repeated praise from Calipari over the past few months, but the playing time just hasn’t been there. The UK coach would clearly like him back with the team, but it shouldn’t be a surprise if he’s the subject of transfer speculation.
Calipari basically acknowledged as much during the league tournament. Talking about the rampant activity in the NCAA transfer portal over the past couple of years, he threw in a thinly veiled reference to the possibility of other schools trying to poach some of his lesser-utilized players.
“I got a couple of freshmen that are going to be terrific players, but I’m not — I can’t play them as much because the guys in front of them are better,” Calipari said. “But a year from now, they’re going to be ridiculously good.”
And then there’s former Kentucky Mr. Basketball Dontaie Allen, who played more than three minutes just once since Dec. 31 and shot just 18.9 percent from three-point range this season with very limited opportunities.
Allen had some big games last season, but it was clear Calipari never saw him as a great fit with that team or this one, and — once the UK coach found other dependable shooters — he was just fine relegating the Kentucky native to the bench. Allen will have a big decision to make this offseason, and there would likely be plenty of programs to pursue him if he decides to leave. Unless something changes, it doesn’t look as if he’ll ever play major minutes for Calipari.
Additions for next season
Kentucky recently lost a commitment from longtime point guard pledge Skyy Clark, but the Cats still have two more highly rated recruits coming in: combo guard Cason Wallace and wing Chris Livingston, the No. 6 and 9 overall players, respectively, in the 247Sports rankings. Both players should compete for starting jobs.
UK will also have transfer guard CJ Fredrick, who played major minutes at Iowa and was a 46.6-percent three-point shooter in two seasons with the Hawkeyes before moving to Kentucky last year. Fredrick sat out this season with an injury but started taking part in pregame warm-ups last month and should be fully ready for the 2022-23 season.
There are bound to be some other UK newcomers.
Even if every player mentioned here were to be on the Wildcats’ roster next season — including Sharpe and Tshiebwe — the Cats would still have one free scholarship to give. The best guess is that a few additional players will depart, and that means Calipari will need to add some new ones in key roles, especially in the backcourt.
With no available impact recruits left in the 2022 class — and no clear reclassification candidates from the high school ranks — it’s logical to expect that the Wildcats will add at least a couple more players from the transfer portal this offseason.
“I could see them taking two or three players out of the portal, for sure,” 247Sports analyst Travis Branham told the Herald-Leader the day before the NCAA Tournament began.
As of now, it’s not clear who those players might be, but the number of transfers in the portal is likely to explode in the coming days and weeks, and Kentucky will surely be linked to a few such players in the near future.
This season just ended, but there won’t be much downtime before the announcements on Kentucky roster comings and goings start to trickle out. The mad scramble of yet another UK basketball offseason begins now.
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 9:50 PM.
