Kentucky’s basketball season ended a month ago. Why haven’t there been more roster moves?
.JPG "Kentucky star Oscar Tshiebwe has until May 31 to make a final decision on whether to stay in the NBA Draft or return to college basketball.")
It’s now been a full month since Kentucky’s 2022-23 basketball season ended with a loss to Kansas State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
And it’s still far from clear as to what the Wildcats’ roster will look like when the 2023-24 season begins.
It’s not uncommon — especially in the John Calipari era — for roster uncertainty to stretch well into the offseason as players weigh NBA Draft decisions and possible transfers, but this particular group is producing more mystery than usual.
With the second half of April already underway, there are only six scholarship players confirmed for next season’s team. Five of those are incoming high school recruits: center Aaron Bradshaw, combo guard Rob Dillingham, small forward Justin Edwards, combo guard Reed Sheppard and combo guard DJ Wagner.
The other confirmed Cat for the 2023-24 campaign is freshman center Ugonna Onyenso, who spent a few days in the transfer portal but has since made clear that he will be back in Lexington for his sophomore year, with major expectations to make a larger impact in season two. (Longtime walk-on Brennan Canada, who earned a scholarship midway through last season, has also said he’ll be back for another run with the Cats.)
And, so far, that’s it.
Jacob Toppin, Cason Wallace and Sahvir Wheeler all announced pretty quickly after the season ended that they would be leaving the program, but all three of those decisions were considered foregone conclusions even before the Wildcats played their final game last month. Toppin and Wallace are preparing for the NBA Draft. Wheeler has not yet announced his transfer destination, though Washington has emerged as the major favorite in recent days.
Seven other UK players have yet to make definitive calls on their basketball futures, and that collective indecision has left Kentucky’s coaches in a tricky spot while trying to figure out the 2023-24 roster.
Three of those players — Oscar Tshiebwe, Antonio Reeves and Chris Livingston, all starters for UK last season — have declared for the 2023 NBA Draft, but all three are retaining the option to return to college, and none of those players are widely projected to be selected in this year’s draft.
Four other Wildcats — CJ Fredrick, Daimion Collins, Adou Thiero and Lance Ware — have made no concrete announcements of any kind regarding next season.
Meanwhile, the transfer portal continues to churn, with some big names going off the board and/or narrowing their options while Kentucky waits on current players.
The wait could continue for a while longer.
Kentucky basketball decisions
The three UK players who have entered their names in the NBA Draft while keeping open the possibility to return to college have until 11:59 p.m. on May 31 to pull out of the draft. With the NBA Combine not scheduled to wrap up until May 21, some of these decisions could drag out.
The latest on those three players, as of Thursday afternoon:
▪ Tshiebwe remains focused on the NBA Draft, and there is no timetable for a decision on his future. While Kentucky would welcome him back for a third season, the program is currently operating under the assumption that he will keep his name in the draft, and that means UK is continuing to evaluate and recruit potential frontcourt replacements. Former Michigan center Hunter Dickinson — the consensus No. 1 player in the transfer portal — remains a possible addition to the Wildcats’ roster, and Kentucky’s coaches had another meeting with him Tuesday and will host him for a recruiting visit this weekend, the Herald-Leader was told. There is no specific timetable set for his decision. Tshiebwe earned around $4 million through name, image and likeness endeavors this past season, and while that will obviously be a factor in his decision, the hope in his camp remains that he can work his way into the draft.
▪ Reeves is not currently mentioned in any notable mock drafts, and the assumption remains that he is most likely to come back to Kentucky for a final year of college, a move that would obviously give the Cats a major outside-shooting threat for next season.
▪ Livingston is still on the outside looking in on most draft boards — No. 83 in a 58-pick draft in ESPN’s most recent rankings, for example — but the current preference from many in his camp would be to remain in this year’s draft. UK is bracing for that scenario, though it’s far from a foregone conclusion. A return to Lexington is still possible, and Livingston has expressed a willingness to come back for a sophomore year, depending on how the pre-draft process goes. With the 19-year-old likely to go fairly deep into that process, no final decision from Livingston is expected anytime soon.
Of the other four Kentucky players still officially undecided on what’s next, Collins has been viewed as the most likely to leave Lexington, an exit that would come via the transfer portal. No announcement has been made yet, but Collins is still expected to transfer. The deadline to enter the portal is May 11.
In UK’s locker room after the loss to Kansas State last month, Fredrick sounded like a player who might be ready to move on from college basketball after five injury-filled years at this level but the transfer portal remains a possibility and could be the most likely outcome at this point. As of Thursday afternoon, there had been no official announcement from Fredrick, but one was expected to come imminently.
Thiero and Ware are considered likely to return to Kentucky unless something changes in the next three weeks, with that transfer portal deadline coming May 11.
Kentucky’s staff has continued to monitor the portal for possible transfers — and there have been conversations with some prospective additions — but Dickinson is currently the only player that would be considered a serious target and could be close to a decision.
Unless most of these remaining stay-or-go decisions break away from Kentucky, the expectation is that the Cats won’t go too heavy on transfers this offseason — maybe one or two additions from that route — with Calipari preferring to roll with his No. 1-ranked recruiting class and a combination of returning players.
With three weeks until the transfer portal deadline and six weeks until NBA Draft decisions must be finalized, there are still a lot of questions to be answered regarding the Wildcats’ next roster. And some of those decisions will require a longer wait.
This story was originally published April 20, 2023 at 6:30 AM.
