The basketball transfer portal will open sooner than you think. What will Kentucky need?
This time last year, many Kentucky basketball fans had already turned their attention to the coming offseason and the change it would bring to a Wildcats team mired in a losing campaign.
That obviously isn’t the case as the calendar flips to March this year. UK has one of the best teams in the country, and John Calipari seemingly has his best chance in years to deliver the program its ninth national championship.
There’s still one week left of the regular season. And then the Southeastern Conference Tournament. And then, perhaps, a lengthy run in the NCAA Tournament.
The coming offseason, however, won’t wait around for the Wildcats. The transfer portal will explode once again this spring, and the first flurry of activity is coming soon, probably more quickly than most fans realize.
“(By next week), the doors are going to burst open, and it’s going to be mayhem with the transfer portal again,” 247Sports analyst Travis Branham told the Herald-Leader.
Branham, who tracked that mayhem for 247Sports last offseason, said the first wave of announcements would come soon after the first conference tournaments are finished. By next Tuesday night, 11 conferences will have crowned a tourney champion. That means dozens of teams will be done with their seasons.
Branham acknowledged that the first wave won’t be the biggest, but he estimated that about 150 players would enter their names in the NCAA transfer portal during that first week. After the power conferences conclude their tournaments at the end of next week, another 150 or so will jump in, according to Branham.
“Then as teams start missing out on the tournament and losing in the tournament, it just takes off,” he said. “And you can see anywhere from 200 to 300 players enter the portal in any given week.”
More than 1,700 players entered the transfer portal last offseason, and the inevitable coaching carousel that occurs every spring will also lead to some talented players looking to switch schools rather than play for a new coach. There were about 60 Division I coaching changes last year, and Branham said he wouldn’t be surprised to see 40-50 such moves this offseason.
So, if Kentucky makes a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, there likely will be hundreds of players already in the portal by the time the Wildcats’ season comes to an end.
And since some of those players will surely be UK targets, it’s something that the Wildcats’ coaching staff will have to keep an eye on, even amid a possible Final Four run.
Timing of transfers
Kentucky’s 2020-21 campaign ended so unusually abruptly that there was a natural transition into the offseason, which featured the first year of the “free transfer” era, where college players knew they would be able to switch schools and play right away for their new team.
This time around, the maneuvering for next season will overlap with Kentucky’s current season.
This UK roster features four transfers new to the team.
Oscar Tshiebwe, of course, was a midseason transfer last year, joining the Cats at the semester break.
Kellan Grady announced that he was entering the transfer portal on March 22 of last year, two weeks before the national championship game. CJ Fredrick and Sahvir Wheeler entered the transfer portal on April 19 and 20, respectively, but both players had been rumored to be headed that route, and, in Fredrick’s case, a transfer announcement had been expected for weeks.
Other big names hit the portal even sooner.
Justin Powell, who was immediately linked to Kentucky, put his name in the transfer portal March 9, the day before the SEC Tournament began. (Auburn was banned from postseason play last year, so Powell’s season had ended a few days earlier).
Walker Kessler, another player who was mentioned as a possible UK target, entered the portal March 22, on a day when NCAA Tournament round-of-32 games were still being played.
Several players that emerged as major impact transfers this season — such as Jamison Battle, Tari Eason, Wendell Green and Alfonso Plummer — put their names in the transfer portal in March. Some even committed to their new schools before the NCAA Tournament was over.
The Final Four this year is set for April 2 with the national championship game April 4, and it’s quite possible that Kentucky’s season is still be alive at that time.
It’s pretty much a certainty that the Wildcats will be looking to the transfer portal for help in their next campaign.
What will Kentucky need?
It’s a little early to be naming names of possible Kentucky additions through the transfer route, but it’s clear that Calipari will go looking in that direction to fill next season’s roster.
The UK coach has raved about the experience of coaching this current team. This Wildcats’ squad includes three new transfers in the starting lineup — Wheeler, Grady and Tshiebwe — with former transfers Davion Mintz and Jacob Toppin as the team’s top two bench players.
Like all Calipari rosters, next season is filled with uncertainty.
Grady and Mintz will be out of college eligibility, and freshman guard TyTy Washington will be off to the NBA Draft. The Cats have only three incoming recruits — guards Skyy Clark and Cason Wallace, and wing Chris Livingston — and no clear options to add anyone else from the high school ranks before next season.
Meanwhile, just about every other player on the current roster is going to be the subject of stay-or-go speculation. Some — like Tshiebwe, Wheeler, freshman recruit Shaedon Sharpe, junior Keion Brooks and perhaps even Toppin — will surely take a long look at their professional options after the season. Other, lesser-used players will be the focus of transfer rumors until they announce a decision.
History suggests that there will be a surprise departure or two (or more) this offseason. And the transfer portal is going to be Calipari’s best bet to fill the needs that arise from those exits.
Two major players to watch will be Sharpe and Tshiebwe.
Sharpe, who was the No. 1 recruit in the 2022 class before graduating from high school early and joining UK at the semester break, has not done any outside interviews since arriving in Lexington, but both Calipari and some in Sharpe’s camp have said that he plans to be at Kentucky next season. Those remarks have been met with skepticism by many basketball analysts, and there seems to be a growing sense from within the program that Sharpe — projected as a top-10 pick in this year’s NBA Draft — is more than likely gone after this season.
The buzz isn’t all bad for Kentucky’s future, however.
Tshiebwe, the leading contender for national player of the year honors, announced recently that he has been cleared to engage in name, image and likeness activities that will allow him to make money while still in college, something that had previously been prohibited due to the particulars of his international student visa.
With a larger-than-life personality and a game to match, Tshiebwe, who is not projected as a first-round NBA Draft pick this year, could stand to make well over $1 million if he returns to Kentucky for a senior season. That seemed unthinkable just a few weeks ago. But now?
The speculation both from within the program and from some college basketball insiders the Herald-Leader has spoken to in recent days suggests that Tshiebwe is indeed leaning toward a return to UK for another season, assuming there are no hitches with his NIL status. The native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is genuinely enjoying his time in Lexington and could actually make more in NIL money next season at UK than his potential pro salary, even if he slipped into the first round of the NBA Draft. (The No. 30 pick this year stands to make $1.7 million as a rookie).
Such a scenario would obviously be a major development for Kentucky’s 2021-22 roster.
Without Tshiebwe, the Cats would need to add an instant-impact frontcourt player to team up with possible returnees Daimion Collins and Lance Ware. With Tshiebwe — and the return of those players — the Kentucky frontcourt could be set without the need of reinforcements from the portal.
If that happens, the guard and wing spots will be positions to watch for Kentucky, especially if Sharpe leaves.
With Grady, Mintz and Washington gone, the possible returnees/additions at those spots will be Wheeler, Clark, Wallace, Sharpe, Fredrick, Dontaie Allen, Bryce Hopkins, Brooks, Toppin and Livingston. That’s a long list, but there’s virtually no chance all 10 of those players will be on Kentucky’s roster next season. It’s likely that a few from that group will leave, either to the NBA Draft or another college.
And then it’ll be time for Calipari and his coaching staff to go looking for the next possible game-changing addition via the transfer portal.
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
