Kentucky misses on 7-foot-3 center Matt Haarms. Who will be the Cats’ next big target?
Matt Haarms won’t be playing his final season of college basketball at Kentucky.
The 7-foot-3 center revealed Thursday that he will transfer to Brigham Young University, picking the Cougars over fellow finalists UK and Texas Tech a little more than two weeks after announcing that he would leave Purdue after three seasons. As a graduate transfer, Haarms will be immediately eligible to play for BYU Coach Mark Pope, the former Kentucky basketball player who led the Cougars to a 24-8 record this past season, his first as the school’s head coach.
Haarms — a native of the Netherlands — averaged 8.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.0 blocks in 20.5 minutes this past season for the Boilermakers, starting 15 of 29 games. ESPN ranked him as the No. 2 available grad transfer for this offseason.
The Wildcats are still in search of help in the paint after losing both of their frontcourt starters — Nick Richards and EJ Montgomery — to the professional ranks. Graduate transfer forward Nate Sestina will also be gone after playing out his final season of eligibility for UK.
As of now, the Wildcats’ 2020-21 frontcourt includes 6-9 power forwards Isaiah Jackson and Lance Ware, a couple of top 40 national prospects in the 2020 recruiting class. Kentucky has also added Rhode Island transfer Jacob Toppin, a 6-8 forward who just completed his freshman season for the Rams. Toppin would not be eligible to play for Kentucky next season unless the NCAA changes its guidelines for traditional transfers.
Keion Brooks — a 6-7 forward — will be the only returning UK player with any experience playing for the Wildcats. He averaged 4.5 points and 3.2 rebounds in 15.1 minutes per game as a freshman this past season. Brooks played some in the post, but he was recruited as more of a wing player. Every other player on UK’s projected 2020-21 roster is classified as a guard or wing.
If the Cats had landed Haarms this week, they might have been finished with the 2020 recruiting cycle. Missing out on his commitment means Kentucky will need to add someone else to help fill the frontcourt void, but there are no clear options.
The only class of 2020 recruit ranked in the top 50 nationally and uncommitted in his plans for next season is 6-9 forward Greg Brown. Kentucky is among his final five schools, but Brown — the No. 9 overall player in the 247Sports composite rankings — is not expected to pick the Wildcats when he reveals his next step Friday afternoon.
Texas emerged in recent weeks as a major favorite, but Brown could also choose to join the G League’s revamped “professional path” program, a move that would allow him to earn a salary — and possible endorsement deals — next season while preparing for the 2021 NBA Draft alongside fellow five-star recruits Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd, who both announced last week that they would be taking that route.
Virginia Commonwealth post player Marcus Santos-Silva — a 6-7, 250-pound forward — announced this week that he would be leaving VCU after three seasons following a junior campaign in which he averaged 12.8 points and 8.9 rebounds in 27.2 minutes per game. He has started all 64 of the Rams’ games over the past two seasons and was the highest-ranked available transfer option after Haarms.
Santos-Silva cut his transfer options to six schools Thursday afternoon, however. His list now includes Arizona State, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, Penn State and Texas Tech, and the Herald-Leader was told that the Sun Devils should be seen as major favorites to land him and that UK was highly unlikely to get involved in his recruitment.
Stadium college basketball insider Jeff Goodman ranks Santos-Silva as the No. 9 “immediately eligible” transfer for next season. Santos-Silva is not actually classified as a graduate transfer yet, though he is on pace to graduate this summer and is expected to be able to play right away at his new school. There are no other post players in the top 40 on Goodman’s list of immediately eligible transfers.
Another class of 2020 recruit?
There could still be other experienced transfers who enter their names in the NCAA portal in the coming weeks. Or, UK could try to add another recruit from the 2020 class.
The choices there are also limited, for now.
With five-star recruit Makur Maker almost certain to play professional basketball next season, that leaves Philippines standout Kai Sotto and Georgia native Frank Anselem as the only uncommitted centers in the top 100 of the 247Sports composite rankings. Sotto is No. 62 on that list, and Anselem is ranked No. 85.
UK actually hosted Sotto — a 7-1 center — for a recruiting visit in December, but there hasn’t been much buzz around the Wildcats since, and Sotto is also expected to take a professional path next season.
Anselem could be a more intriguing option. The 6-10 center recently announced that he was reclassifying from 2021 to 2020, and he had narrowed his college choices to Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana State before reopening that process when other major programs began to inquire about his recruitment. The Herald-Leader was told this week that Kentucky is one of the schools that have reached out and that the Wildcats’ coaches had spoken with Anselem’s camp even before Haarms announced he wasn’t coming to Kentucky.
There are also elite post players in the 2021 class who could still reclassify to 2020 and play college basketball next season.
Seattle power forward Paolo Banchero — the No. 2 overall player in the Rivals.com rankings and arguably UK’s top 2021 target — has often been talked about among UK fans as a reclassification possibility, but he’s adamantly denied that he will make such a move, and — as of Wednesday night, at least — he is expected to remain in the class of 2021.
Five-star center Moussa Cisse, who just completed his junior season in Memphis, is a much more likely reclassification candidate, but Rivals.com national analyst Corey Evans told the Herald-Leader last week that Louisiana State has the inside track for the 6-10 prospect if he does indeed make the move to 2020.
French power forward Moussa Diabate — a 6-9, 195-pound prospect who plays for a high school in Florida and is ranked No. 18 overall by Rivals.com — has also been linked to Kentucky in the past, but it’s unclear if he will reclassify, and he still doesn’t have a scholarship offer from the Wildcats.
UK has also been linked to 7-foot, 235-pound center Efton Reid — a prospect from Richmond, Va. — and yet another possible reclass candidate. Reid is ranked by Rivals and 247Sports as the No. 27 overall player in the 2021 class. He has scholarship offers from Louisville, Virginia and Ohio State, among many others, and North Carolina and Michigan have also reached out about his recruitment.
Kentucky re-established contact with Reid on Wednesday.
There are a handful of other post players further down the 2021 rankings who could make the jump to 2020, but none would be more talented than Jackson or Ware, nor would any of these 2020 or 2021 recruits add any college experience to what would otherwise be an extremely young frontcourt.
John Calipari clearly needs at least one more player for next season. Exactly where he’s going to find that player is still a mystery.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 11:59 AM.
