What can Kentucky really expect to find in transfer portal to fill frontcourt void?
Swings and misses with its top frontcourt targets have added a little drama and uncertainty to what has otherwise been a stellar 2022 recruiting cycle for the Kentucky men’s basketball team.
The Cats already have three five-star commitments in the backcourt — point guard Skyy Clark, shooting guard Shaedon Sharpe and versatile wing Chris Livingston — and they’re expected to add another top-10 player when combo guard Cason Wallace announces his college decision Sunday.
That’s a heck of a recruiting class, by any standard.
What the Wildcats don’t have — and probably won’t be getting anytime soon — is a big man.
So far this fall, UK has missed out on Dereck Lively II, who committed to Duke, and Adem Bona, who picked UCLA on Monday, leaving the Cats with no frontcourt recruits for the 2022-23 season and zero realistic options remaining in the 2022 class.
That means John Calipari is certain to keep tabs on the transfer portal to fill any frontcourt gaps before next season.
What can Kentucky realistically expect if it goes that route? Recent history would suggest the Wildcats should have plenty of talent to choose from.
Top frontcourt transfers in 2021
The college basketball transfer portal exploded this past offseason, following the NCAA’s official decision to allow players to switch schools without sitting out a season.
In a cycle that was stacked with talent, several of the top transfers were pegged as frontcourt players.
Six of the top 10 players in ESPN’s final transfer rankings for the 2021-22 season were either power forwards or centers, and that list doesn’t include All-American big man Kofi Cockburn, who entered the transfer portal but ultimately decided to return to Illinois. (Cockburn, who was linked at one point to Kentucky, was ranked No. 1 overall on ESPN’s list before he decided against a transfer).
UK already had Oscar Tshiebwe, Daimion Collins and Lance Ware set for its 2021-22 frontcourt, so the Cats weren’t in any dire need of a post transfer. If they had been, there would have been options.
Former five-star recruit Walker Kessler, UMass star Tre Mitchell, veteran North Carolina big man Garrison Brooks, and Oral Roberts standout Kevin Obanor — a 6-foot-8, 235-pounder — all switched schools and ended up in ESPN’s top-10 list of transfers. Georgetown-to-Maryland transfer Qudus Wahab was No. 15 in the rankings, and CBS rates the 6-11 center as one of the top 100 college basketball players in the country heading into the season.
Some of those players had pre-existing ties to their new schools, some didn’t, and that’s likely to be the case in every transfer window moving forward.
Tshiebwe, who is expected to start at center for UK this season, was also on ESPN’s list as a midseason transfer last winter. ESPN ranked him No. 8, behind Kessler, Mitchell and Brooks, an example of just how much proven frontcourt talent was available going into this season.
That group of post player transfers — the first in the “immediately eligible” era — is logically the best barometer to try and predict how much instant-impact talent will be looking to switch schools next offseason.
Before the 2021 offseason, the only players who entered the transfer portal knowing for sure that they would be eligible right away with their new team were graduate transfers.
The transfer portal leading into the 2020-21 season was relatively light on star centers, with Kentucky actually getting the top-ranked option, Olivier Sarr, who often struggled, like the rest of the Wildcats, last season. Matt Haarms (Brigham Young) and Liam Robbins (Minnesota) were the next-best-ranked big men in that transfer class, according to ESPN.
The year before that, major UK target Kerry Blackshear was the No. 1 frontcourt transfer. He ultimately ended up at Florida — averaging 12.8 points and 7.5 rebounds per game — while Kentucky landed Nate Sestina, more of a versatile forward who played an important complementary role on a team that might have made a deep NCAA Tournament run if the event hadn’t been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Will UK need a big man?
All of this speculation centers on the narrative that Kentucky will truly have a real need for an instant-impact post player before the 2022-23 season.
Perhaps that won’t be the case?
The current Kentucky trio of Tshiebwe, Collins and Ware is good enough that the Wildcats are considered to be a top-10 team going into this season, and it’s fair to expect all three of those players to improve, some of them significantly, over the course of the next few months.
It’s also not completely unrealistic that all three could be back for another season in Lexington.
Collins, a freshman this season, is currently the only one of those players who is projected as an NBA Draft pick next year. And most of those projections have the 6-9 power forward as a back-end first round-pick. With his unique blend of skill and athleticism, the upside is certainly there for Collins to work his way into the top 10 — perhaps even the top five — on future NBA Draft boards.
If that doesn’t happen right away for the UK freshman — and he’s still projected as a late first-rounder, or worse, a few months from now — perhaps he might choose to return to Kentucky for a sophomore season, take advantage of name, image and likeness rules, and continue to develop and improve his NBA stock.
Tshiebwe turns 22 years old later this month, but due to NCAA revisions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, he still has three seasons of college eligibility. He’s also not even listed on ESPN’s current ranking of the top 100 draft prospects for 2022. Tshiebwe’s game, in its current form, isn’t a great fit for the direction the NBA has taken in recent years. He could opt to go pro after this season, but his destination would be uncertain. There’s also a chance he could return to Kentucky and continue to develop.
Ware came to UK as a freshman last year fully expecting to be with the program for multiple years, and there’s no sign he would be looking to go anywhere after the upcoming season.
It’s probably not the most likely scenario, but if Kentucky could actually return all three frontcourt players, there’d probably be no need to add anyone else before next season.
And if they could get even two of those players back, the roster dynamics might be such that the transfer portal wouldn’t be necessary.
The way things look now, Calipari will surely be compelled to play at least three guards/wings at the same time in 2022-23, and there’s a good chance that lineups with four such players on the court at once would make for UK’s most talented combinations.
Livingston, in particular — at 6-6 and 200-plus pounds — has the strength, skill and rebounding ability to be the second-biggest player on the court and still do well against college competition. Kentucky could also return bigger wings like Jacob Toppin, Bryce Hopkins (and perhaps even Keion Brooks) from this season’s team, players that would probably take minutes from what would normally be the “4” spot, leaving less playing time for more traditional big men. In that case, having just two of Tshiebwe, Collins and Ware might get the job done.
However it shakes out, UK should be in a great spot for the 2022-23 season, thanks to tremendous backcourt recruiting in this cycle and the expected return of several talented players.
But if the Cats do need an instant-impact big for next season, this past summer showed that there should be plenty of options.
This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
