These were the five biggest Kentucky basketball recruiting developments of 2021
College basketball coaches returned to the recruiting trail in 2021, a year filled with considerable success and substantial change within John Calipari’s Kentucky program.
Following an NCAA-mandated halt to basically all recruiting activities in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, coaches were finally permitted to host prospects on college campuses and travel to see them play starting in the summer of 2021. It was a busy year, and one that brought about changes to UK’s program and the overall college basketball landscape that will be felt for years to come.
Here are the five biggest recruiting stories for the Wildcats in 2021 …
5. The transfer portal
The ultimate fallback plan for college basketball coaches fully arrived, and Kentucky took advantage of the opportunity as much as just about any program in the country in 2021.
After years of hemming and hawing on the subject, the NCAA finally approved a one-time free transfer rule, allowing basketball players the chance to move to a new school without sitting out the following season. A similar provision enacted in 2020 due to the pandemic eased the transition, but the Transfer Era was fully realized this past year, with more than 1,500 men’s basketball players putting their names in the portal.
It’s a game-changer for college basketball, and UK is already seeing its effects. The Cats landed four big-name transfers, to mostly positive results so far. Oscar Tshiebwe is a star. Sahvir Wheeler is sometimes erratic but leads the Southeastern Conference in assists. Kellan Grady has yet to fully live up to possible overblown expectations, but there’s still time (and he’s been shooting the cover off the ball recently). CJ Fredrick is expected to miss the entire season due to injury, but he should be on the roster in 2022-23.
Calipari showed in 2021 that he won’t be afraid to bolster his roster with last-minute additions, if that’s what the situation calls for. And the players who transferred to UK showed the Wildcats’ program should be expected to have just as much recruiting pull with veteran players as it does with high schoolers.
So, if UK misses on some top recruits from the prep ranks, Cats fans need not worry. Reinforcements can likely be found once the season ends.
4. Shaedon Sharpe
For the first time in more than a decade, Kentucky landed a commitment from the No. 1 player in high school basketball with the addition of Shaedon Sharpe, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Ontario who’s seen as a can’t-miss college prospect and likely high-end NBA lottery pick.
Sharpe was the first consensus No. 1 recruit to pick UK since Nerlens Noel in 2011, though that stat was short-lived once Sharpe decided to enroll in classes at Kentucky early and join the team this season — a move that shuffled him back into the 2021 class rankings, where he’s now the No. 3 consensus recruit.
Wherever he’s ranked, Sharpe’s commitment to Kentucky was a big deal, one of Calipari’s biggest recruiting victories in years, and an addition that should provide an immediate impact to the program, whenever it is that Sharpe first steps foot on the Rupp Arena court. And that now becomes one of the biggest questions for 2022 — will Sharpe play this season? The plan was for the 18-year-old to practice only with the Cats this winter, acclimate himself to college basketball and work on his strength and conditioning ahead of the 2022-23 season.
Plans can change, however, and Calipari and Sharpe are both leaving the door open for a debut this season. We’ll see what happens next.
3. Reed Sheppard
What’s a bigger deal than landing a commitment from the No. 1 recruit in high school basketball? Landing a commitment from Reed Sheppard, apparently.
Few things capture the imagination of a longtime UK basketball fan more than a Kentucky kid suiting up for the Wildcats, and no in-state recruit can claim a combined story and skill set quite like Sheppard’s.
Not only is Sheppard a legitimate five-star national talent — a recruiting rarity for a Kentucky native — but he’s the son of two UK basketball greats: one-time men’s Final Four most outstanding player Jeff Sheppard and former women’s team standout Stacey Reed Sheppard.
Reed Sheppard led the state in scoring as a sophomore. He can fill it up from long range. And he’s the driving force on a North Laurel High School team with realistic Sweet Sixteen expectations.
You’d probably have to go back more than 30 years — to Richie Farmer or even Rex Chapman — to find an in-state recruit who has enthralled Kentucky fans like Sheppard has. Luckily for them, Sheppard went ahead and announced his commitment to the Wildcats in November, just a few months after Calipari extended a UK scholarship offer (a gesture that came less than 24 hours after the Kentucky coach watched Sheppard play in person for the first time).
Sheppard is still just a junior, so UK fans will have to wait a couple more seasons for him to make his Wildcats debut. They’ll be more than ready when that time arrives, and — unlike many in-state recruits of the past — Sheppard is capable of making an instant-impact on the court.
2. A new coaching staff
When the NCAA effectively hit the pause button on recruiting activities in March 2020, the assistant coaches that John Calipari had in charge of UK’s recruiting efforts were Kenny Payne, Tony Barbee and Joel Justus.
When the recruiting restrictions were lifted this past summer, all three of those coaches were gone, replaced by Orlando Antigua, Chin Coleman and Jai Lucas.
One year made for a seismic shift in the Kentucky program. First, Payne left for the New York Knicks, and he was ultimately replaced on the recruiting trail by Lucas, who brings ties to basketball-rich Texas and is viewed as one of the biggest up-and-comers in college basketball.
Following the 2021 postseason departures of Barbee and Justus, the Cats brought in Antigua and Coleman, who worked together at Illinois and have earned the reputation as two of the best recruiters in the sport. (Antigua, obviously, had great recruiting success at UK from 2009-14).
The results of this apparent recruiting dream team have yet to be realized, but the expectations are high. Kentucky has landed a No. 1-caliber class for next season (if you include Shaedon Sharpe in the group), and while it’s true that the Cats were already in very good standing with most of those signees before Antigua and Coleman arrived, the new coaches still had to help secure those commitments. And they did it.
The real recruiting test for this group of coaches will come with the 2023 class, and it’s clear that UK is swinging for the fences, with scholarship offers already out to all of the top-ranked players in the group. Now that coaches are back on the road and UK’s campus is again open to visiting recruits, the thinking is that this Kentucky staff will produce plenty of magic in the coming months.
The pieces are in place for a recruiting renaissance in Lexington, with results that could challenge the earliest days of the Calipari era.
1. Name, image and likeness
Nothing rocked the recruiting world — and UK basketball, in particular — in 2021 quite like the introduction of NIL reforms as an avenue for college players to make money while still in school.
In the abstract, this shouldn’t be that big of a deal when it comes to recruiting. The college basketball programs with the most resources will reap the biggest benefit, while those with fewer resources will suffer. The rich get richer — or stay just as rich — so to speak.
Kentucky basketball, however, might be on a tier all its own.
NIL-related conversations with recruiting insiders and others in college basketball over the past six months or so have all reached similar conclusions: that UK basketball is a brand within a market uniquely suited to make a major, major splash in this new world of college athletics.
Few college sports programs have the widespread appeal of Kentucky basketball, which operates within a state with no major sports franchises with which to compete. The long, storied history of the program, the frenzied fan base, the national (even international) exposure, and John Calipari’s emphasis on “what’s best for the players” creates a confluence of factors that could make Kentucky stand alone at the top of the NIL world.
TyTy Washington and Shaedon Sharpe landed Porsche deals before playing a college game, and opportunities abound up and down the roster. These developments — and UK’s early embrace of NIL change — have not been lost on prospective recruits.
Chris Livingston, a top-10 national player in the 2022 class, was long thought to be a near-lock to turn pro out of high school. Instead, he chose college and will play for the Wildcats next season, a decision that many recruiting observers have credited to NIL reforms.
Livingston isn’t the only 2022 recruit to be swayed by NIL possibilities. The topic is apparently a major talking point on official visits, and — so far — it’s telling that zero five-star recruits from the 2022 class have committed to a professional route for next season, following a three-year span where preps-to-pros was becoming an increasingly common route for the nation’s best seniors.
Looking into the immediate future, Kentucky has offered scholarships to every player at the top of the 2023 rankings. NIL reforms, seemingly, make it more likely that those players will choose college basketball over a jump straight to the pros. And UK’s emergence as a leader in this new landscape, seemingly, make it more likely that such players will end up playing for the Wildcats.
That should give Kentucky fans plenty to be excited about in the new year, and beyond.
This story was originally published December 30, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
