Will this finally be a Kentucky team that returns several players for another season?
At this point in seemingly every one of the past few Kentucky basketball seasons, a large number of UK fans come to the collective thought that, surely, several Wildcats from this team will be back for another year.
Yet, rarely has that turned into truth.
But, after this 1-3 start with no quick fixes in sight, surely several Wildcats from this team will be back for another year? Right?
Veteran transfers Davion Mintz and Olivier Sarr could use the NCAA’s provision allowing an extra season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 situation to return to UK for next season, but there’s no expectation that will happen. Both are expected to move on. Despite their uneven play early, Brandon Boston and Terrence Clarke will still be projected as top picks in next year’s NBA Draft. And Isaiah Jackson, perhaps the brightest spot of this UK season so far, is also generating buzz as a possible one-and-done, first-round draft pick.
Even if all of those players leave, that would still leave six UK scholarship players who could stick around for another year: Dontaie Allen, Devin Askew, Keion Brooks, Cam’Ron Fletcher, Jacob Toppin and Lance Ware.
Of that group, coming into the season, Brooks was seen as perhaps the most likely departure, but he’s yet to see the court due to injury, and there’s no set date for his return or any sign of how much he’ll be able to play when that happens. For a player that was on zero draft boards to start the season, he’ll have an uphill climb to get into that conversation.
The other five players on that list are all UK newcomers, and none have shown anything to even realistically entertain the thought of a jump to the pros. That obviously hasn’t stopped UK players in the recent past from leaving school early, but perhaps this group will be different. Askew, Fletcher and Ware all came to Lexington under the expectation that they’d be here for multiple seasons, Allen — a Kentucky native and lifelong UK fan — is just now returning to the court after missing nearly two years due to injury, and Toppin transferred from Rhode Island expecting to sit out this season completely as he concentrated on making an impact in the long term.
Over the past three years, no UK team has returned more than four scholarship players from the previous season. That was last season’s team, which brought back Ashton Hagans, Immanuel Quickley, EJ Montgomery and Nick Richards.
Just because it looks like the Cats might get six back from this team at this point in the season doesn’t mean it will happen.
The list of players in that three-year span that have left UK earlier than expected — or left the program when it seemed they had no shot at a successful pro career — is a long one that includes such former Cats as Jemarl Baker, Wenyen Gabriel, Quade Green, Johnny Juzang, Sacha Killeya-Jones, Montgomery, Jarred Vanderbilt, Kahlil Whitney and Tai Wynyard. A couple of others — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyler Herro — were expected to be multi-year college players only to play their way into legitimate one-and-done glory. Go back a couple more years, and there are even more examples to be found.
Baker, Green and Juzang all left the program as transfers in the past two years, and Kentucky will be at risk of that again this offseason, especially if the NCAA passes its “free transfer” provision allowing players to switch schools and not sit out a season.
The players on this team who are expected to be back in college next season will be hearing — through go-betweens — that their services can be better used elsewhere. There’s technically no “tampering” allowed in these potential transfer situations, but this is the way it has always worked, and the NCAA’s “free transfer” policy change would only increase such communication. “If you’re not getting minutes there, come here and we’ll make you a featured player,” has and will continue to be a common pitch well before players even enter the transfer portal.
If no current UK players listen to such overtures — and none make a short-sighted jump to the pros — next season’s Wildcats could actually be one of John Calipari’s most experienced yet.
Adding those possible returnees to an incoming group that includes game-changing power forward Daimion Collins, two more immediate contributors — point guard Nolan Hickman and combo forward Bryce Hopkins — plus whoever else Calipari adds between now and next season could prove to be that blend of talent and experience that has worked so well for so many other college teams over the past couple of seasons.
The recent past says there’s a long way to go before we’ll see if that actually pans out.
‘A promising start’
Kentucky signee Daimion Collins continues to impress on the court. Earlier this week, he scored 45 points and recorded a triple-double in a high school game, and he’s now ranked as the No. 10 overall recruit in the 2021 class by both Rivals.com and 247Sports.
The 6-10ish power forward is the type of player John Calipari has had success with during his UK tenure, but he hasn’t had a player quite like Collins in a few years. The closest recent comparison is probably current freshman Isaiah Jackson, though 247Sports national analyst Eric Bossi told the Herald-Leader last week that he sees Collins as more advanced offensively than Jackson (and also possibly a little bigger, longer and more athletic).
UK assistant coach Joel Justus was Collins’ primary recruiter, though new assistant coach Jai Lucas delivered a major assist in that recruitment, playing on his previous relationship with Collins as his lead recruiter at Texas and helping to convince him to leave Big 12 country for Lexington.
Justus and Lucas are expected to coordinate most of UK’s recruiting efforts moving forward, and Bossi said the commitment from Collins could be a sign of more good things to come from Kentucky’s newest assistant coach.
“It’s certainly a promising start, right? You hire a guy because you like his youth and his energy, and the noise that he’s been making on the recruiting trail,” Bossi said. “And Jai’s a really sharp basketball mind, too. It’s what he’s been around his entire life — he knows the game. He’s not just a one-trick pony recruiter. He knows what he’s doing.
“But, yeah, the proof is in the pudding. He comes in and says, ‘Hey, I can help get this guy.’ And he gets it done. So, yeah, that’s a good start. And I would think that bodes well for the future.”
Hunter Sallis update
UK’s top remaining point guard target for next season, Hunter Sallis, reiterated this week that he plans to hold off on a college decision until after the high school season. 247Sports ranks Sallis as the No. 6 overall player in the 2021 class, and he has said for months that he would like to take some more college visits — if the NCAA lifts its COVID-related recruiting “dead period” in time — before making a college announcement.
Sallis has never visited Kentucky or North Carolina, two major schools on his list. 247Sports’ Eric Bossi mentioned those two schools and Gonzaga as possibly the three in the top tier for Sallis entering the winter.
Kansas was once seen as a possible favorite, but Bossi told the Herald-Leader that the Jayhawks’ ongoing infractions case with the NCAA could hurt their standing.
“He has been to Kansas, and I do think that he really likes Kansas. But until they get some type of resolution from the NCAA, I think it might be a tough climb for Kansas,” he said. “But if Kansas were to get a relatively positive result with the NCAA, I think they could be right back in there, because they’re so close to home and he’s had the ability to be one on one with these people.”
Creighton, the hometown school, has also been mentioned as a dark-horse candidate in the past, though Bossi said he read the Jays’ recent addition of highly touted point guard TyTy Washington as a sign that they don’t feel great about their chances with Sallis.
Iowa State, Oregon and UCLA are also still on Sallis’ list, but none of those schools has been recently mentioned as realistic favorites.
So, this much-anticipated decision could come down to UK, Gonzaga and UNC, and it would no doubt benefit Kentucky to get Sallis on campus in the spring. The NCAA’s current recruiting dead period, which has been in place since March, is in effect through April 15, though there’s hope in the college basketball community that it might finally be lifted then. We’ll see.
Efton Reid Watch
Those following the recruitment of five-star center Efton Reid might soon get a better feel for his college future.
Reid — a 6-11 post player from Virginia, now at IMG Academy in Florida — teased this week that he would be releasing a list of schools “soon.” Kentucky has been in regular touch with the class of 2021 standout over the course of the year, and several different schools have been prominently mentioned as possible landing spots during that time. Ohio State and Pittsburgh are the two programs getting the most buzz in recent weeks, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone who has a great level of confidence in Reid’s ultimate college destination or when a decision might come.
This new list of schools, whenever it arrives, could shed some light on one of the few top prospects in the 2021 class that remains uncommitted.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 7:43 AM.
