Tracking Kentucky basketball stay-or-go decisions (and other UK recruiting thoughts)
A week removed from the end of Kentucky’s disappointing basketball season, the Wildcats’ roster outlook for the 2021-22 campaign is already beginning to take shape.
It’s sounding like UK might indeed return more players than usual.
So far, the only two decisions that Kentucky has officially acknowledged are from freshman forward Isaiah Jackson, who will submit his name for this year’s NBA Draft, and freshman forward Cam’Ron Fletcher, who has entered his name in the NCAA transfer portal.
Neither of those decisions came as a surprise, though it is important to note that Jackson — the Cats’ leading rebounder and one of the best shot-blockers in the country this past season — is leaving the door open for a possible return for a sophomore year. The Herald-Leader was told that Jackson and his family are looking for feedback that would indicate the 6-foot-10 forward will be a high-end first-round pick in this year’s draft, and he’d be open to returning to UK to improve his stock otherwise.
The most likely scenario is that he’ll stay in the draft — and it should still be seen as a surprise if he returns — but his situation is at least worth monitoring.
It’s important to note that until UK officially confirms a stay-or-go decision, things can still go either way. Minds and circumstances can change as the offseason moves along — especially if new players are added to the roster — but it has to be seen as a positive sign that Dontaie Allen, Devin Askew and Lance Ware are all indicating they will be back in Lexington next season.
All three of those freshmen struggled to varying degrees in their first season of college basketball, and all three were subject to behind-the-scenes transfer rumors over the past few weeks. But, for now, it sounds like they’ll all be back.
Sophomore forward Jacob Toppin is also expected to return, which would give the Cats at least four scholarship returnees — plus mid-season transfer Oscar Tshiebwe — for next season. That would be a huge step in adding some continuity to a program that has been sorely lacking in that area and returned just one scholarship player with college experience this past season.
Allen, Askew, Toppin, Tshiebwe and Ware would be a terrific foundation moving forward. Getting sophomore forward Keion Brooks and/or fifth-year guard Davion Mintz back would give the Cats a familiar, veteran feel they’ve largely lacked in recent years.
Brooks has also been the subject of transfer rumors in college basketball circles — he could also go pro, though he’s not projected as a draft pick this year — but no decision has been announced, and there’s still a realistic chance he’s back at Kentucky next season. Mintz is also considering a return. Either player would be a major boost for UK’s roster continuity.
Coach John Calipari hinted on his final radio show of the season that senior center Olivier Sarr is likely to go pro, which was expected. Former top-10 recruits Brandon Boston and Terrence Clarke are also expected to join Jackson in the NBA Draft pool, though nothing official has been announced by Kentucky.
This time last week, it seemed like getting four scholarship players back would be a victory for UK. Right now, it looks like they’ll do at least that.
NCAA transfer portal
We told you it was going to get crazy.
According to 247Sports analyst Travis Branham, who has been closely tracking the NCAA transfer pool, there were 605 names in the portal as of Thursday morning. The number on the same date last year was 340, and the number on the same date in 2019 was 204.
That’s an astounding total for 2021, and dozens of new players are adding their names to the portal every day. In fact, it’s likely to hit 1,000 names sometime in the next few days.
Kentucky is expected to ultimately add at least one player from the transfer portal. So far, most of the attention has been on available guards — expected to be a position of need for the Cats next season — but there have also been rumblings in recruiting circles of frontcourt players UK could show an interest in. There’s nothing concrete there yet, but it’s an example of just how wacky this transfer window is going to be.
Of course, the top name on the minds of Kentucky fans is still Auburn guard transfer Justin Powell, but there hasn’t been much new on his case in the past few days. It appears as if he will indeed take a little more time to sort through his options. UK remains at the top of the list for the Louisville-area native, but other schools will have their chance in the coming days.
That SEC transfer rule
One possible hindrance to Justin Powell playing for Kentucky next season is the Southeastern Conference’s rule that requires any player transferring within the league to sit out a season before being allowed to actually play in games.
It would be a surprise if this really turns out to be a problem.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey gave a very commissioner-y take on the rule during the conference tournament last week, and his roundabout answer could be taken a couple of different ways. It was clear that Sankey would like the league’s member schools to come to a final decision on this rule in the near future so the SEC isn’t put in a situation where it has to sort through waiver requests every offseason.
It also seemed clear that Sankey wants to avoid the bad optics — especially right now — of the NCAA ruling a player eligible and the SEC saying that player still has to sit out. The NCAA is expected, sometime soon, to announce that all transfers this offseason will be eligible to play right away for their new schools without sitting out a season. It stands to reason that the SEC would ultimately cave and waive its own rule — like it did this past season — to coincide with the NCAA’s stance. There’s also a chance that the league could vote later this year to do away with the intraconference rule altogether.
“Our membership needs to deal with what it wants in the rule, and we’re going to need to do that I think when we understand what’s going to happen at the national level,” Sankey said.
So, in Powell’s case, playing next season at Kentucky — if that’s what he wants to do — shouldn’t be an issue. It’ll just take some time for official word on that to come down.
However, until the SEC makes its stance more clear, you can expect other schools recruiting Powell to use this to their advantage.
Keels and Sallis
There’s still nothing breaking Kentucky’s way regarding the trio of five-star guards from the 2021 class who are on the Wildcats’ radar.
The expectation is still that Jaden Hardy will ultimately opt for the G League, with an announcement on his future expected sometime next month.
Trevor Keels and Hunter Sallis are the more immediate recruitments of interest.
Sallis — a 6-5 combo guard from Omaha — led his team to its first Nebraska state title a few days ago and will announce his college decision March 26. Gonzaga now has 100 percent of the picks on his Crystal Ball page, and it would be a pretty big surprise if he ends up anywhere else.
Keels is a more interesting case.
The 6-5 shooting guard from the Washington, D.C., area will reveal his college decision April 4, and the finalists are Duke, Kentucky, Villanova and Virginia.
Duke had long been seen as the slight favorite, with Villanova right there in the picture. Last week, three Duke recruiting insiders changed their Crystal Ball picks from the Blue Devils to Nova, seemingly a great sign for Jay Wright’s program. Then, a few days later, one of those Duke analysts changed his pick back to the Blue Devils. National analyst Eric Bossi made his Duke pick last month — with a low-confidence qualifier — and has stuck with that so far.
None of this sounds good for Kentucky, obviously. The late UK scholarship offer seemingly hasn’t changed the narrative that it’s a Duke vs. Villanova battle. The back and forth — along with the lack of public predictions from other prominent recruiting analysts — is a sign that there’s still quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding Keels’ decision, however.
And when there’s some true mystery this late in a high-profile recruitment, anything can happen.
TyTy Washington on the radar?
Highly touted point guard TyTy Washington popped up as a possible UK target shortly after his decommitment from Creighton last week.
Washington — a 6-3 senior from Arizona — had one of the best high school seasons in the country and is a candidate to jump into five-star territory once the 2021 rankings are finalized. (He currently sits No. 30 overall in the class).
He has the burst at the point guard position that UK was lacking this season — something that remains a question mark for next season’s roster — and he possesses the size, length and skill that Calipari often looks for in his point guards.
So, is he a serious UK target?
There’s no real sign of that just yet.
Washington has received scholarship offers from Kansas, Arizona, UCLA, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Oregon — to name a few — since announcing he was no longer committed to Creighton. Illinois is also a school to keep a close eye on as Washington’s new recruitment progresses. There is no timetable for his final college decision.
What’s next for Calipari?
Those Kentucky fans wishing for a change of direction in the program might’ve heard some glimmer of hope in John Calipari’s words on his final radio show of the season Monday night.
Calipari repeatedly used the word “unacceptable” to describe UK’s 9-16 season that resulted in the program’s first missed NCAA Tournament in eight years. More importantly, he seemed to take a genuinely reflective approach to the Wildcats’ troubles, as opposed to his sometimes dismissive and combative reactions to criticism during the season itself.
Rather than blame COVID-19 and the effect the pandemic had on UK’s ability to prepare and play this past season — as he did for most of the past few months — Calipari sounded open to exploring the other issues that are obviously having a negative impact on the program, relative to where it was a few years ago.
COVID-19 undoubtedly played a large role in this losing season — and it affected UK’s team of newcomers to a higher degree than it did some other programs across the country — but there are deeper flaws in the direction of Kentucky basketball that predate the pandemic.
A few days removed from UK’s final loss — with a little more time to reflect — Calipari seemed to be grasping that. And he vowed changes.
“We gotta evaluate everything,” he said. “Can’t do it emotionally. Gotta do it thoughtfully.”
The UK coach said he would elicit outside opinion — from basketball people he trusts — to try and get some views on what exactly went wrong for the Wildcats and how they can make sure a season like this doesn’t happen again.
“I’m trying to stay focused on where we go,” Calipari said. “And let me say to everybody: the ground below us is kind of moving around a little bit. The way college basketball is now is going to change drastically in the next three to four years. And our job — my job — is to say, ‘How do we stay ahead of this curve now? What do we do? What just happened? How do we make sure it doesn’t happen again? What was the reasoning for this?’”
Calipari has been a master of innovation throughout his Hall of Fame career, but he’s been criticized for falling behind in recent years. An over-reliance on one-and-done talent that simply isn’t as good as his early UK teams is one issue. A resulting lack of roster continuity is another. An offensive approach that has been described as behind the times — certainly one that runs counter to the trends of both the college and pro game — has been an easy target for derision.
Kentucky looks like it’s going to return more experienced players than usual for next season. That’s a start. Calipari suggested at one point in Monday’s show that, to some degree, perhaps overall skill and shooting ability should trump his coveted length and athleticism. That could work out well.
“I’m not going to have all the answers — it’s been four days,” he said at one point.
Fair enough. But what he does over the next four months — how he shapes his roster, how he maps his future recruiting priorities, how he plans to approach things on the court — will have a major impact on what’s next for Kentucky basketball.
Maybe Calipari was just placating an angry, angsty fan base with his words Monday night, and he thinks Kentucky basketball will return to “normal” whenever the rest of the world does (hopefully soon).
But if he was sincere, and if he really plans to shake things up, the next act in the Calipari era should be very interesting indeed.
